{"id":917279,"date":"2026-10-05T18:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T18:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/917279\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T18:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T18:52:12","slug":"rockstar-traveled-across-florida-with-gang-members-and-cops-for-gta-6-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/917279\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockstar Traveled Across Florida With Gang Members and Cops for GTA 6 Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lovemagazine.net\/\" class=\"link jsx-1337145738 jsx-3925284146 underlined\" data-cy=\"styled-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Love Magazine<\/a> recently got an exclusive interview with Rockstar Games ahead of <a class=\"link jsx-1337145738 jsx-3925284146 underlined\" data-cy=\"styled-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sea.ign.com\/games\/grand-theft-auto-vi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GTA 6<\/a>\u2019s release next month. While the interview focuses primarily on the love story between dual protagonists Jason and Lucia, there\u2019s some interesting insight into the studio\u2019s process for creating the most impressive virtual worlds ever made. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">For its rendition of Florida, team members spent lots of time embedding with the culture and exploring the landscape of Miami and its surrounding areas. These research trips start small as the leads scout out the most interesting locations and stories, and more team members come on subsequent trips to dive deeper into the culture, stories, and people. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cEvery game we make starts with research trips. It\u2019s where to get to explore both the place and our ideas as a group,\u201d head of development Aaron Garbut said. \u201cTo begin, a small group of us spent some time traveling from Miami through some of the surrounding towns and through the Florida Keys down to Key West. This is one of the best parts of the entire project: a car full of friends, driving for days on end, talking about what we want to make and being immersed in the locations and our ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Grand Theft Auto 6 vs Real Life Inspiration<img alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" decoding=\"async\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2277167929 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Garbut takes a camera and a phone and records everything that happens. During one shoot, a handful of Rockstar devs spent the day flying low and fast over mangrove inlets in the everglades, before ending the day hovering over a stadium with a live Beyonce concert playing. \u201cI think we made the local news that day,\u201d Garbut said. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cWe do go in-depth, we hang with locals and we hear lots of stories and learn as much as we can. We travel around with cops and with gang members. Everyone is lovely. Some people are equally scary. We experience the underside as well; although the people who showed us around were among the nicest we\u2019ve met, the stories, the places, the details could be terrifying. We try to build a world that is believable and varied, with depth, so that is the research we need. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cMiami itself is really those extremes \u2014 lovely people, incredible wealth, incredible poverty, excess, craziness, the hustle, and showing it all off. That\u2019s our research trips \u2014 experiencing those extremes so that we can bring them into our world, and it all finds its way into the game in surprising ways.\u201d <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Some of those surprising ways could be pedestrian dialogue or radio shows and advertisements, which Rockstar said it doesn\u2019t treat as secondary content. Everything is important when creating a world you want players to spend hundreds of hours exploring. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Rockstar\u2019s approach to a GTA game set in the modern day is to deliberately avoid recreating real-world viral moments, since long development timelines mean these kinds of references can date a game \u2014 ask Borderlands. Instead, GTA 6\u2019s satire focuses on modern culture, conspiracy theories, and \u201cthe strange ways people react to events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Last week, local team the Miami Heat announced a special match, during which <a class=\"link jsx-1337145738 jsx-3925284146 underlined\" data-cy=\"styled-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sea.ign.com\/articles\/miami-heat-gta-6-uniform\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Heat will wear a GTA 6 uniform<\/a> in a themed arena. We&#8217;ve got extensive coverage of GTA 6 across IGN. Check out<a class=\"link jsx-1337145738 jsx-3925284146 underlined\" data-cy=\"styled-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sea.ign.com\/articles\/gta-6-rob-nelson-interview-rockstar-north\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> IGN&#8217;s interview with Rockstar Games<\/a>, our<a class=\"link jsx-1337145738 jsx-3925284146 underlined\" data-cy=\"styled-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sea.ign.com\/articles\/gta-6-exclusive-preview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> GTA 6 preview<\/a>, and<a class=\"link jsx-1337145738 jsx-3925284146 underlined\" data-cy=\"styled-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sea.ign.com\/articles\/first-major-cast-member-confirms-appearance-in-gta-6-seemingly-going-off-rockstars-script\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> word of the first confirmed GTA 6 voice actor<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Kirk McKeand Avatar\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"progressive-image profile-thumb-img jsx-249361588 jsx-2338608387 expand\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/ign.jpg\"  data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Kirk McKeand is a Contributor on IGN News. Find him on Twitter @MckKirk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Magazine recently got an exclusive interview with Rockstar Games ahead of GTA 6\u2019s release next month. While&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-917279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}