GTA 6 has a lot to live up to, a former Rockstar dev says Vice City was so accurate he could use it as a map to get around real-life Miami

Sep. 21, 2024

Need directions? Former Rockstar Games writer Lazlow Jones might be your guy

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Making open-world games comes with many perks, though one unexpected one, as formerRockstar Gameswriter Lazlow Jones explains, is that you might already know your way around a city you’ve never visited.

Speaking to comedian, actor, and radio personality Dan Soder on hispodcast, the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption veteran recalls a press trip to Miami to promote GTA 4 that was made all the easier not because Jones has visited the city before, but because he helped create GTA: Vice City.

“Me and this guy who worked at Rockstar are driving, and I go, ‘This is starting to feel really familiar,'” he says. “I go, ‘If we go around this corner, there’s a strip club.’ Went around the corner: strip club. I was like, ‘Yo! I know how to get around town.'”

Now, you might think the achievement isn’t that impressive – I imagine Miami has heaps of strip joints – but it’s not the first time it’s happened. As we previously reported, one professional footballer saidplaying GTA 5 made his move to Los Angeles easierbecause he already knew his way around. Uncanny.

While Jones isn’t around to help shape it,GTA 6takes us back to Vice City. Folks are looking forward to many parts of the upcoming open-world game, though another highlight we can add to our list is that if you find yourself in Miami in the future, you might be able to get around town just fine.

As for Jones, hisnew open-world game is apparently less mysteriousif you listen to the studio’s audio series: “A lot of the questions could be answered by listening.”

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Iain joins the GamesRadar team as Deputy News Editor following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When not helping Ali run the news team, he can be found digging into communities for stories – the sillier the better. When he isn’t pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new hat, you’ll find him amassing an army of Pokemon plushies.

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