Vice City from GTA VI is already mapped using MS Paint, Google Earth and Math

Previously this week, early development footage of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto game, supposed to be Grand Theft Auto VI, leaked all over the internet. You probably already know all of this. Since then, it has become more difficult to find the leaked images and sites, including Kotaku– are unable to present footage or screenshots of the leaks. But that didn’t stop a dedicated group from GTA fans to gather in various locations with the goal of mapping as much of the new Vice City and surrounding areas as possible using math, MS Paint, Google Earth, and teamwork.

In November 2011, Rockstar Games released the first trailer for the unprecedented GTA V. The hype around the game exploded and the day after, users of the GTA forums began browsing this trailer in an effort to map out the game’s virtual world. Over the next two years, as Rockstar released more screenshots, trailers, previews, etc., fans continued to spend hours upon hours each day researching and compiling data. And as it turned out, the final map they all created before the game’s official release matched the real world of the game almost perfectly. GTA V. Impressive stuff! And now, a decade later, fans are coming together to plan the next one again. Grand Theft Auto world before its official release. However, things are different this time around.

Previously, fans used official trailers and screenshots to help them piece together parts of Los Santos. This time all content fans are looking at this new version of Vice City which comes from a leak that Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive are actively trying to suppress using legal action and DMCA takedowns. This complicated things and created a new problem for keen mappers: how do you collaborate and map a virtual world if no one can share images of that virtual world online? GTA the fans are a shrewd and dedicated bunch, though, and they’ve come up with a few solutions.

The first and most basic method is to completely avoid incorporating leaks into their work. In place, on the GTA Forums, users use Google Earth images to replace screenshots. And to help provide context to some of these photos, a few users have even started opening Microsoft Paint to pull raw but usable recreations of moments seen in the escape GTA VI pictures. So far, this seems to be allowed by the admins of the GTA forums, where some of this collaboration takes place. (Previously, a thread trying to map Vice City was closed after including leaked gameplay footage.)

However, this limitation has frustrated some dedicated mapmakers who want to be as accurate and precise as possible in their efforts. And others just find it annoying to have to dance around content restrictions. Many have jumped onto private Discord servers where they can freely share screenshots and leaked footage. It wasn’t even an option in 2011 with GTA V because Discord wasn’t a thing.

In one of the most popular mapping Discord servers, people are already making great strides. The leaked images contain a lot of useful data, such as the coordinates of the game, which greatly helped the mappers to understand where are various places one to another.

We’re only a few days away from the leak, and we already seem to have a pretty solid, if somewhat empty, version of what Vice City could look like in the final game. This latest map was created by user Church of GTA with help from over 100 other users. He uses GTA V and Rockstar’s own engine metrics to help understand the scale relative to Los Santos. So far, it looks like it could end up being a really big map.

All the people on the Discord server and on the GTA forums provide different comments and information. Some look for landmarks in leaked content, then try to triangulate their location based on other leaked sequences and mathematics. Meanwhile, some users are going through every frame of leaked footage, tearing up the game’s minimap to help create pieces of the map that can then be connected together. And other GTA fans are using their real, real-life knowledge of Florida and Miami to help fill in the gaps, providing information about highways and old buildings or demolished roads.

Church of GTA they jokingly told me they were happy for me to share the latest version of their map as it might help make all the hours spent on it worthwhile. All kidding aside, all this detective work isn’t easy. In fact, it takes a lot of time and effort, with some people claiming to have spent hours upon hours tracking down a single graffiti or landmark. But for many of these people, it’s a pleasure to map out what could end up being a virtual world in which they spend years. GTA VI is finally released.

Of course, this is where I’ll mention that all of this leaked content is from a still-in-development version of GTA VI and therefore everything is subject to change. In fact, that’s something that happened in the last attempt at mapping Los Santos. Minor changes to the world during development were sometimes spotted by users, forcing them to modify their own maps before the game was released in 2012. It’s likely the same thing will happen here.

But for now, these players are giving us our first real glimpse of what could end up being Vice City and surrounding areas. And considering how close they all got last time, I’m excited to see what they end up putting together between now and GTA VIthe start.