The Launch Gallery: Two Weeks Out

Two Weeks Out, New Pictures

Rockstar posted the Launch Gallery on November 5, two weeks before the game unlocks. The Newswire post is two sentences long. It points to a set of new screenshots on the official site and ends on "See you in Leonida on November 19." The pictures carry the rest. We counted 39. The page loads them as you scroll.

Guns Out

The heaviest material first. Jason and Lucia rob a bank counter together, both masked, a teller with her hands up and a customer on his knees. Jason fires a rifle through a spray of sparks, then braces a rifle over a car hood with helicopters overhead. A third frame has him aiming a handgun with police silhouettes behind him in smoke. Another puts him at a fuel pump at night, a red car behind him with a cracked windshield. Jason and Lucia also lean out of a car together, his handgun pointed ahead.

Lucia has four pictures of her own, and she is armed in all of them: through wet glass in blue light, aiming from a car, close in on the camera, and at night with a police officer and cruiser lights at her back. For how the law answers in the game, see the wanted system.

Wheels and Law

Jason rides a sport bike with a police cruiser right behind him. In a second frame he is helmeted on a dirt bike, weapon in hand, riding through the inside of a lit venue with other riders. Lucia fires from a convertible with motorcycles and a police car behind her. At dusk a line of police cars crosses a bridge past a waterfront mansion and a yacht.

One road picture has no gunfire. A pink-and-purple muscle car sits at a meet in the sun, a woman on its hood taking a selfie. The rest of the fleet is in the vehicle roster.

Clubs, Bars, and Booths

A club with a DJ under a disco ball and a packed floor. Jason and Lucia close together in blue club light. A crowded bar with neon behind the drinkers. A VIP booth with bottles, a chain, and a man holding court. A lit dressing area full of dancers. A neon cabaret in Port Gellhorn. A salon chair with a seated man and a crowd around him. And a woman in a shower of cash.

Vice City, Wide

Three establishing shots. A harbor full of yachts under the skyline, with a plane crossing the sky. A resort pool seen from straight above, ringed by palms and hotels. And the whole city at night across the water, lit pink and blue. Our reconstruction of Leonida now has more official ground to check against.

Swamp, Reef, and Hill

Outside the city the set slows down. In the Grassrivers a man sits by a fire at a stilt shack with a snake across his shoulders and an alligator at his feet. A second night frame shows a boat sweeping spotlights over the water, another alligator in the foreground. In the Leonida Keys a diver floats over coral with a lionfish below, a boat hull above. See diving.

The quietest frame is labeled Jason and Lucia: a pickup parked on a grassy hill at sunset, two people sitting on it, deer in the grass and a haze of city beyond. Jason also lifts a barbell in a gym. That one is worth a look next to the gym and fitness FAQ.

Faces Without Names

The Vice City pictures carry the faces nobody has named. A man in a camo bucket hat hides his mouth behind a ringed hand. A pit bull in a spiked gold collar sits next to a man in a track jacket. A group of heavily tattooed men pose close together. Two men share the back seat of a car, one holding a pistol. Rockstar names none of them and says nothing about which crew any belongs to. The confirmed crews are on the factions page.

What the Gallery Doesn't Say

No HUD. No menu. No map. No mission names. Rockstar calls them screenshots and does not say whether they were captured in-game or built as key art. Every place in the set is one Rockstar has already named.