It’s been 13 years since Grand Theft Auto 5, and gamers have been patiently waiting for GTA 6 for years. Unfortunately, it looks like the highly anticipated game has been delayed again, so gamers will have to wait another year for the next entry in the series. As disappointing as this news is, there are still plenty of incredible GTA games to play and revisit during this agonizingly long wait.
One of the more underrated GTA games is 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This game might be more than 20 years old, but it’s still an incredibly fun installment that holds up very well. Dan Houser, Rockstar co-founder and creator of the Grand Theft Auto series, spoke. While some of the inspiration might seem like a no-brainer, fans might be surprised to learn about the details.
GTA VI Returns to Vice City More Than 20 Years After the Vice City Game
One of the most enticing aspects of GTA 6 is that it’ll be returning to Vice City. While it’s a fictional location, it’s based in Miami, Florida. Dan Houser recently reflected on how it felt to finally be returning to Vice City and talked about the crime dramas that inspired Rockstar to create the city in the first place.
“Scarface, Miami Vice, and our ’80s childhoods,” said Houser, naming the main inspirations for GTA: Vice City. “You know what I realized quite a while ago, unfortunately, was that we made that game, and it was set, I think, in ’86. And it… We made it in 2002, so 16 years after. And now it’s way past 16 years since Vice City came out. So the ’80s were not that long ago when we made it.”
Scarface seems like a no-brainer, but Miami Vice came as a bit more of a surprise, though it makes perfect sense. Miami Vice is a crime drama that debuted in 1984 and ran for five seasons. It follows two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives, James “Sonny” Crockett, played by Don Johnson, and Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs, played by Philip Michael Thomas, as they go undercover in Miami. Both detectives soon became known for their strong sense of style, wearing t-shirts under expensive suit jackets.
Miami Vice went out of its way to incorporate the culture of Miami during the ’80s. Along with its focus on fashion, it emphasized music, popular cars, and even stylish weapons of the era. It quickly became a hit, and many now-famous stars appeared on the show over the course of its run, including Ed O’Neill, Lawrence Fishburne, and Wesley Snipes.
Unlike other crime dramas of the era, it prioritized bringing its locale to life. Sonny lived on the water in a sailboat, and both detectives were regularly seen on the water as they worked on cases. Like GTA, cars were also a big part of the experience, and the detectives were regularly seen in Ferraris. Miami Vice kept things simple and stylish and feels like a capsule of Miami in that era.
Style is also a big part of video games, especially sandbox games like GTA: Vice City, and that makes it a perfect inspiration. Miami Vice had a strong sense of style and a clear voice for what it wanted to be, and GTA: Vice City sought to replicate that magic in a different medium. Obviously, the game isn’t a carbon copy of the crime drama. It’s a unique story with unique characters and a fictional setting, but it’s easy to see how Rockstar Games used Miami Vice as a point of inspiration.
GTA Continues to Revisit Vice City Because It’s the Perfect Location
A man and a woman sit on the hood of a car with a pastel sunset in GTA 6.Image via Rockstar
Miami is a unique setting, which is why it was the perfect location for both Miami Vice and Vice City. According to Houser, Miami’s distinct vibes and culture are one of the reasons GTA has kept coming back to the city, along with a few other locations. “There’s a reason why GTA kept coming back to Miami, New York, Los Angeles,” he explained. “You could move it to any of those, and it would work, you know?”
Houser went on to explain why those locations are a perfect fit for a satirical crime series like GTA. “You know, there’s glitz, glamour, underbelly, immigrants, you know, enormous wealth in all of them. Those are what, I think, are really fun for any, not even just for GTA, but for anything where you want a kind of slice of life, almost like a sort of psychotic version of a Dickens book. You know, this big slice of life. He did it with London.”
It’s the melting pot aspect that truly makes Miami such a rich environment for a game like Grand Theft Auto. A place filled with people from so many different backgrounds creates one of the most colorful, boisterous, and instantly recognizable settings for a story. Most people know they’re looking at Miami the second they see it. These massive cities are so culturally mixed that they develop their own style, language, and everything in between.
The GTA franchise has become known for delivering open-world games where players can do anything. From cruising through city streets to people so desperate to survive that they turn to crime, to those who become incredibly wealthy because of those same criminal acts, these are the perfect locations for both TV crime dramas and the kinds of stories that the GTA series wants to tell.
Over the years, many other games, movies, and TV shows have tapped into these melting pot cities where anything feels possible. Dexter is another series set in Miami, following the title character as he works as a blood spatter analyst by day and a serial killer by night. But Dexter only kills those who deserve it: other killers. Through his perspective, the show explores Miami’s underbelly, exposing how the rich get richer while keeping the poor beneath them. It also shows how the police force handles a steady stream of crimes in a city that’s both beautiful and dangerous.
Similarly, Dead Island 2 takes place in Los Angeles. While it’s primarily a zombie game, players still experience a strong dose of LA culture through its open-world exploration, and the real-world setting actually makes the fantastical story feel a little more grounded. Players even have the chance to visit familiar landmarks, like Hollywood Boulevard, over the course of the game.
Arguably, the setting is what made Miami Vice such a memorable and successful crime drama. Most police procedurals are set in big cities, but Miami Vice stood out by fully embracing the culture of ’80s Miami. It’s easy to see how a stylish crime drama like that could go on to inspire one of the best entries in the Grand Theft Auto series. Now that players are stuck waiting for GTA 6 a little longer, it’s the perfect time to dive back into Vice City and even watch the show that helped inspire it.