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GTA VI’s bombastic trailer might have solely been a minute and a half lengthy, however for that transient time period I felt like I used to be in Florida, sweating in a sun-soaked swamp, interacting with its daft denizens, slapping mosquitos off my ankles with a paper fan. GTA VI is ready within the fictional state of Leonida (Florida) and the acquainted, neon-soaked Vice Metropolis (Miami), however it clearly covers the Keys, the Everglades, and all these unusual suburbs dotting the peninsula which might be teeming with Florida males. We see grime bikers racing via streets, a fan boat whizzing via a swamp at sundown, weeds rising via the cracks of busted-up concrete sidewalks, and so many extra markers of a state that’s nearly perpetually within the public eye.
I could also be a born-and-bred New Yorker, however I take into account myself one thing of a Florida skilled. From the ripe outdated age of 1 up till my 18th birthday, I spent greater than per week each February at my grandparents’ condominium in Fort Lauderdale. I’d fish geckos out of the pool with the leaf skimmer, stroll alongside the man-made lakes within the hopes I’d spot a gator, and pressure my mother and father to take me to Miami so I might get a henna tattoo and beaded braids (I’m sorry).
Learn Extra: Grand Theft Auto VI Proves 2023’s Greatest Video Recreation Development Is Right here To Keep
I’ve vacationed in Miami twice for the reason that covid pandemic (and each instances I spent more cash than I’d prefer to admit in strip golf equipment). Except for New York, there isn’t one other state I’ve spent extra time in than Florida, so I’m well-equipped to investigate the world during which GTA VI is ready.
When the extremely anticipated Rockstar sequel drops someday in 2025 for Xbox Sequence X/S and PS5 (not PC, oops), we’ll get to play in an enormous Floridian funhouse mirror, a real-but-unreal world stuffed with gators, weapons, and ladies.
Leonida, the nice GTA VI state
Florida is a state of extremes. Excessive poverty might be present in its extra central, swampy suburbs, and excessive wealth glistens on the Miami shoreline. We see all of it throughout the GTA VI trailer, from the graceful, panning pictures of the artwork deco buildings in South Seaside and the turquoise waters surrounding the Florida Keys, to the shaky, iPhone-quality movies of a shirtless man working from cops or a man crashing via a Solo Cup-covered folding desk.
GTA VI’s Vice Metropolis palms us Miami within the bustling, bumping, twerking golf equipment just like the one rappers Future and Meek Mill dropped 10 bands at in single night time, and the mural-covered, artsy Wynwood hotspots you could find over the bridge, with lowriders and sport bikes parked exterior. We get the sweeping overhead pictures of the town’s snaking highways, the barges parked in its impossibly clear waters, the crowded seashores full of individuals in neon thong bikinis and little chihuahuas working throughout the sand, a 4WD cop truck parked jauntily close to the place the tide is available in.
However the trailer additionally pulls away from Vice Metropolis, and due to this fact Miami, offering peeks of the locations just like the Florida Everglades (the 1.5 million acre wetland sitting on the state’s southern tip) and the Seven Mile Bridge, which connects mainland Florida to the Keys, a set of islands off the southernmost tip. We additionally see the impoverished suburbs, with visuals that really feel as in the event that they’re invoking locations like Pahokee, one of many poorest suburbs within the Miami metropolitan space with a 35% poverty charge as of 2022.
Florida males
Rockstar’s unimaginable trailer additionally offers us a take a look at its core forged, together with considered one of our two major characters, Lucia, who’s getting out of jail after a string of what she calls “dangerous luck.” Lucia, like 12.7% of Floridians as of the 2022 census, doubtless lives beneath the poverty line, and this Bonnie in all probability turned to crime along with her Clyde-esque lover to make a fast buck. And she or he, like 27.1% of Floridians, seems to be of Hispanic or Latino descent.
Florida could also be constantly related to wild white guys and its politics could also be extra aligned with far-right losers like Ron DeSantis, however it additionally has the very best inhabitants of Cuban-Individuals within the nation. There’s a vibrant variety tucked away in numerous components of the Sunshine State, and the trailer makes certain to indicate us all of that. We see it on the Vice Metropolis seashores and in its golf equipment, certain, however we additionally see it within the sun-soaked suburbs and off the rain-glistened freeway, within the crew of grime bikers and ATV riders popping wheelies down a dusty aspect avenue, in a set of automotive aficionados parked on the curb, doorways open to indicate off their interiors.
However a Florida recreation wouldn’t be a Florida recreation with out Florida males, and it’s clear that GTA VI is stuffed with them. In the actual world, there’s one thing within the water down there, one thing that’s spawned so many information headlines like “Florida Man Does [Insert Something Wild Here]” that it was a meme that then grew to become a type of cultural shorthand. Florida Man is all over the place in Florida, and he’s all over the place on this trailer—dancing on the bow of a yacht, his overly tanned pores and skin like a Slim Jim, working ass-naked from a cop via a fuel station car parking zone, making an attempt to fish a gator out of an in-ground pool, staring blithely at a distinct gator strutting via the entrance door of a comfort retailer, standing for a mugshot, face adorned with dangerous tattoos, lined in mud and American flag regalia wielding a beer, grabbing his crotch on the aspect of the freeway, watering his garden in only a inexperienced poker visor, thong, socks, and sneakers.
We even get a Florida lady, for variety’s sake: an older girl, sporting a nightgown and slippers, dual-wielding hammers on the finish of her driveway, during which a beat-up outdated muscle automotive is parked. “Nicely, look who’s again,” she says menacingly, reminding me of the time a girl in a Florida relaxation cease tried to inform me she was my mother and I needed to go along with her to fulfill Santa.
As Kotaku’s Zack Zwiezen mentioned, Rockstar has at all times been good at making unimaginable trailers that seize the quintessential vibes of the locations from which it attracts inspiration. However there’s one thing actually particular about this GTA VI trailer—it’s imbued with that unusual, surreal Floridian feeling, that chaos that thrives in its humidity, that nestles amongst its weird animals and much more weird folks. I’m able to go down south, however I hope that Rockstar’s typically pitch-perfect model of satire additionally reveals some sharp truths concerning the Sunshine State.
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