The First Frame
A truck moves down a subtropical highway. Palm trees. Flat terrain. Bright sun. On the side of the truck, a logo for a beer called Patriot. The first thing Rockstar showed the world was a joke about American nationalism on a delivery vehicle. The tone is set before a single character appears.
The road is Leonida, the state equivalent of Florida. Its name not yet spoken.
Lucia
Lucia Caminos is in a cell at Leonida Correctional. The shot is from her perspective. An inmate in a jumpsuit with INMATE across the back walks past. That is how we understand where she is. Not through a title card, through what she sees.
If you brighten the frame, there is a photograph under the bed. She is younger in it. Her family is with her. Rockstar did not need to put that there. They put it there.
She sits across from her parole counselor, Stefanie. The counselor asks why she is there. "Bad luck, I guess." Confident. Not broken. Slightly defiant. That is the first line of dialogue in the most anticipated game in years, and it tells you exactly who Lucia is.
In the official key art released later, Lucia has an ankle monitor on her left leg. She is getting out on conditions.
Vice City from Above
A sweeping aerial shot pulls back over the coastline. Vice City. Contemporary, not the 80s throwback people expected. The water reflections are accurate. Four dolphins are visible near the shore. Two sharks are in the water. One near the dolphins, one uncomfortably close to the beach.
A plane flies overhead trailing a banner: "Y69 WHEN YOU CAN 9I9." A parody of a real Miami nightclub sign. Rockstar put it in the first aerial shot of Vice City.
The lower floors of buildings along the waterfront have visible interiors through the windows. Fully rendered rooms, visible from the air. Those spaces look accessible.
The camera pans to the South Beach strip and a crowd shot that stopped the internet. Every single person is individually modeled. Different body types, skin tones, outfits, behaviors. Nothing is copy-pasted. In the bottom right, a man is lying on his stomach taking photos of a woman behind her back. On the left, someone is applying sun cream to someone else's back. Helicopters matching GTA 5 and GTA Online models fly distant in the sky. A small dog is in the crowd. Under a beach umbrella, what looks like a cat lying in the shade.
After Dark
Night. A street scene. A car moves past with a passenger hanging out of the window, filming on their phone. The shot is not about the car. It is about the person filming. Leonida is a place that films itself constantly.
A car meet appears. Custom vehicles gathered. The pink car pulling in has a sticker on the back right window reading "27IN", 27-inch rims. The car culture here goes deep enough to sticker the spec.
A strip club interior. Dollar bills fly across the stage. A sign in the background reads "Make It Rain Mondays." The day-of-the-week sign is not a decoration, it is a schedule. Strip clubs are open in Leonida and they have a weekly calendar.
An extreme close-up of a man's face. Gold grills on his teeth. Never appeared in a GTA game before. On his cheek, physical acne scarring. A level of skin texture detail Rockstar had no obligation to model. They modeled it.
A bird's-eye view of the ocean at night. Large yachts sitting out on the water. Not speedboats. The kind of vessel that costs money to maintain.
Ocean Drive and the Keys
One-to-one recreation of Ocean Drive in Miami. The Art Deco facades, the traffic, the palm-lit boulevard. On the road: a Porsche 911 equivalent, the Grotti Cheetah Classic identifiable by its license plate (the fan-favorite Ferrari equivalent from GTA Online, back in the world), a green Pêgas Tempest equivalent, a blue Corvette equivalent, an old yellow Cadillac across the street, and the Banshee.
The shot opens to the Leonida Keys. Islands connected by bridges, shallow reef channels, the Atlantic stretching out. One bridge on the right is unfinished. It does not reach its destination island yet.
Also visible: a large cargo boat out on the water, a blimp hanging in the upper center, and the horizon extending so far it communicates something about scale that a number never could.
Leonida Online
A rapid montage of social media clips. This is how Leonida documents itself. Short videos from inside the state's internet ecosystem, the kind that get shared and captioned and commented on. There are ten of them in about fifteen seconds.
Dad Bod Squad
Caption: "Dad Bod Squad." An older wealthy man on a yacht, surrounded by young women. The shot lasts two seconds and covers an entire lifestyle.
Uninvited Guest
Caption: "Remember to check for uninvited guests before the pool party." An alligator is being removed from a residential swimming pool. A direct parody of real Florida incidents. In Leonida, it is content.
Have a Vice Day
Caption: "Have a Vice Day." A woman is twerking on a truck. That is the entire scene. Rockstar put it in the first trailer without hesitation.
Planet Leona Man
Two girls filming a music video on the roadside, live-streamed. The live chat is running. One username visible: "Planet Leona Man", a direct play on the Florida Man meme. First spoken confirmation of the state's name. Leonida.
General Custard Cannon
Caption: "Only in Leona is a crotch grab an apology for bad driving." Second explicit mention of Leonida. A sign in the background reads: "Have you seen this man? Wanted for panty sniffing."
Vice Vinyl
A gorgeous green pearlescent truck with a custom paint job. Stickers: "Ride Out Customs" and "Vice Vinyl." Not a random prop. Vice Vinyl appears again later in this trailer, and Sound for Sound (a connected brand) shows up as gang graffiti in Trailer 2.
The Mankini
A man in a very small swimsuit is watering his lawn. No further context is provided or required.
Thrillbilly Mud Club
A monster truck event in the swamp. Mud and dirt physics at Red Dead Redemption 2 quality. Dirt deforms, sprays, clings. A monster truck does a flip in the background. In the crowd, what appear to be children. If that holds, the first time children have appeared in a GTA game.
Hamlet
A sign reads: "Neighborhood watch, don't play around in Hamlet." A woman stands in front of it wielding throwing axes. Hamlet is a neighborhood in Leonida.
Table Jump
A man leaps off the back of a truck onto a table full of alcohol bottles. Everything disintegrates. Pure Leonida.
Bodycam, Chase, Billboards
Handheld police bodycam footage. A raid on a property. Not Lucia or Jason's place. Shaky, close-quarters, first-person. Whether this is a gameplay perspective or simply bodycam footage circulating inside Leonida's media ecosystem like the clips before it, it is not framed like a cutscene.
Then Jason and Lucia are running from VCPD through Vice City streets. In the background, a Weasel News van. A news ticker in Spanish translates to: "Confession written in ink, a tattoo on the neck that gave away the conviction of a Leonida man." A parody of a real 2017 Miami arrest. The state has a name and a news cycle.
A billboard for a drug called Angster Pan which "cures emotions." Fine print: "Patients between the ages of 18 and 65 should use with Extreme Caution. Call your doctor if your erection lasts more than 4 hours. Results may vary." A prescription pharmaceutical advertisement on a Vice City motorway.
The Job and What Comes After
Vinyl records in the back of a truck. The Vice Vinyl storefront appears again. Second time in the trailer. A "Sound for Sound" brand sticker is visible on a car out front. A green Chrysler 300 equivalent is parked outside with a license plate reading: PIMP.
Then the robbery. Lucia and Jason are mid-holdup at a corner store. Inside: a sign for Pisswasser 9, the non-alcoholic version of the returning fan-favorite brand, alongside Logger Beer, a new one. A CCTV camera sits directly above Jason's head. It is positioned where you can see it. That is not accidental.
They drive away. A Pawn & Gun gun shop goes past with a Mercedes G-Wagon equivalent parked out front. Owner: "Port Galah Horn." Next to it, WH Shoes, which stands for We Have Shoes. License plate on the getaway car: NICE TAN.
A quieter scene. The two of them, close. Jason has a scar on his left eyebrow and under his chin on the left side of his face. Blunt trauma, not a shaving accident. Lucia says the word "trust." She is wearing an infinity bracelet on her wrist. The symbol for eternity. Rockstar slows down for this, the same way they slowed down for the photograph under the bed.
Lucia kicks a door open. On it: "We will no longer accept cash stored in underwear," an Illuminati all-seeing eye sticker, a White Claw knockoff called Four, "For your safety, please don't drink in the store," a yellow sticker reading "Petty Forever", a nod to Tom Petty, who performs the trailer's song, and Pindo, a Spanish-language alcohol brand. The paint on the car they arrived in is peeling. Old damage, not new.
The Last Frame
Jason and Lucia, side by side. Both holding Glock 18 pistols. The Glock 18 has been one of the most requested weapons in the GTA community for years. It had never appeared in the main series. Rockstar made it the final image of Trailer 1.
The pink GTA VI logo. Then: Grand Theft Auto VI, 2025.
That was 91 seconds.
Comments (0)
Log in to comment. Your Discord account works.