Rockstar Games spent years driving through the swamps and streets of Florida to build the world of GTA 6. The studio’s head of development, Aaron Garbut, has opened up about the research trips that turned Miami and the Everglades into the game’s beating heart. And the process involved flying low over mangrove inlets and hovering over a stadium with a live Beyonce concert playing.
The revelations come via Love Magazine, which interviewed Rockstar ahead of the game’s release next month. The story focuses on the love story between dual protagonists Jason and Lucia, but it also offers a rare look at how the studio crafts its massive virtual worlds. For its rendition of Florida, team members embedded with the culture and explored the landscape of Miami and its surrounding areas.
From Miami to Key West
Garbut describes the research trips as the starting point for every game Rockstar makes. “Every game we make starts with research trips,” he said. “It’s where to get to explore both the place and our ideas as a group.”
The process begins with a small group of leads scouting locations and stories. Then more team members join on subsequent trips to dig deeper into the culture, stories, and people. For GTA 6, that meant driving from Miami through the surrounding towns and down through the Florida Keys to Key West.
“It’s 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,” Garbut said.
He takes a camera and a phone and records everything that happens. During one trip, a handful of Rockstar developers spent the day flying low and fast over mangrove inlets in the Everglades. They ended the day hovering over a stadium with a live Beyonce concert playing.
“I think we made the local news that day,” Garbut said.
The Underbelly of Miami
The trips were not all smooth sailing. Garbut said the team traveled with locals, cops, and gang members. He described the people they met as lovely, but acknowledged that some were equally scary.
“We do go in-depth, we hang with locals and we hear lots of stories and learn as much as we can,” he said. “We travel around with cops and with gang members. Everyone is lovely. Some people are equally scary.”
The experiences were often terrifying, even when the guides were friendly. “We experience the underside as well; although the people who showed us around were among the nicest we’ve met, the stories, the places, the details could be terrifying,” Garbut said.
That research feeds directly into the game’s design. “We try to build a world that is believable and varied, with depth, so that is the research we need,” he said.
Miami’s Extreme Extremes
Garbut framed the research trips as a way to capture the full range of Miami’s character. “Miami itself is really those extremes — lovely people, incredible wealth, incredible poverty, excess, craziness, the hustle, and showing it all off,” he said.
“That’s our research trips — experiencing those extremes so that we can bring them into our world, and it all finds its way into the game in surprising ways,” he added.
The stories and details collected during these trips appear throughout the game. Rockstar said some of those surprises could be pedestrian dialogue, radio shows, and advertisements. The studio does not treat that content as secondary.
- Pedestrian dialogue
- Radio shows
- Advertisements
“Everything is important when creating a world you want players to spend hundreds of hours exploring,” the studio said.
Avoiding Real-World Viral Moments
Rockstar’s approach to a GTA game set in the modern day is deliberate. The studio avoids recreating real-world viral moments, citing long development timelines that can date a game.
Instead, GTA 6’s satire focuses on modern culture, conspiracy theories, and “the strange ways people react to events.” The studio’s reasoning includes the Borderlands example.
A Match Made in GTA
Last week, the Miami Heat announced a special match. The Heat will wear a GTA 6 uniform in a themed arena during the game. Rockstar’s research trips took the team far beyond the basketball court, but the team’s work with local culture clearly had a lasting impact.
IGN has extensive coverage of GTA 6, including an interview with Rockstar Games, a preview, and word of the first confirmed GTA 6 voice actor. The game arrives next month, and the studio’s dedication to getting the details right is now part of the conversation.
Source material: “Rockstar Traveled Across Florida With Gang Members and Cops for GTA 6 Research,” IGN.
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