On Thursday, Rockstar Games finally pulled back the curtain on Grand Theft Auto 6 and provided fans with a nearly 30-minute-long gameplay trailer. The game looks amazing and massive. But it also isn’t the first time the GTA series has visited Vice City, Rockstar’s parody of Miami, Florida. 24 years ago, GTA Vice City was released on PS2 and became one of the most popular games of the era. So, with our first gameplay of GTA 6 finally available, let’s compare it to the decades-old Vice City to see just how far Rockstar’s tech and visuals have come since 2002.
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that, yeah, GTA 6 looks a lot better than GTA: Vice City. I’ve grabbed a few different screenshots from the 26-minute-long gameplay video to directly compare them to similar scenes and locations seen in Vice City. Some are from the PS2 version, others from the PC port of the classic 2002 open-world game. Either way, the difference is staggering. Let’s begin, shall we? Use the sliders below to compare the games.
This is perhaps one of my favorite comparisons. In both screenshots, Rockstar is trying to recreate a rundown trailer park in the middle of Florida. But with the power of modern consoles and the RAGE engine, Rockstar gets much closer to what they were trying to pull off in 2002.
Another favorite comparison of mine is just how much more crowded and alive the dance clubs in GTA 6 look compared to the smaller Malibu Club in GTA Vice City.
It should be noted that GTA Vice City was incredibly impressive back in the day and even now, looking at it running on a PS2 is wild. But it doesn’t come close to matching the visual fidelity on display in GTA 6. It also only took about a year to make GTA Vice City and nearly a decade to create GTA 6.
And let’s end with an example of what a police chase in 2002 looked like compared to a police chase in 2026. Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives in November on PS5 and Xbox.
