Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is Rockstar’s 1986-set follow-up to GTA III, released on PlayStation 2 in October 2002 and still the most quotable entry in the series. This is the RockstarSpy archive file: story, map, cast, what it changed, every version worth knowing about, and where you can actually play it as of October 2026.

Verdict

Vice City is the GTA I would hand to anyone who wants to understand why this series became a cultural event rather than a crime game. It took the GTA III formula, which was barely a year old, and gave it a voice, a decade, a colour palette and a soundtrack. Twenty-four years on, the structure shows its age in places, but the mood has never been bettered by any Rockstar game, including the ones with a thousand times the budget.

Pros

• Tommy Vercetti is the first GTA lead with a personality, and Ray Liotta plays him with real menace.
• The 1986 setting is a complete period piece: cars, fashion, radio, television, even the billboards.
• Property ownership turns the back half of the game into an empire builder, a first for the series.
• Motorbikes and flyable helicopters open up the map in ways GTA III never could.
• Nine radio stations stacked with licensed hits, plus Lazlow at his peak on V-Rock.

Cons

• Mission checkpoints do not exist. Fail “Demolition Man” or “Death Row” and you drive back to the start.
• The targeting and shooting are 2002 vintage and the Definitive Edition only partly fixes that.
• Several licensed tracks, including both Michael Jackson songs, are missing from every version sold since 2012.
• The 2021 Definitive Edition launched in a poor state and some of its visual choices still divide players.

Who it is for: players who finished GTA V or Red Dead Redemption 2 and want to see where Rockstar’s design language came from, and anyone counting down to GTA 6’s return to Vice City who wants the original reference point.

Key facts at a glance

Item	Detail
Developer / publisher	Rockstar North / Rockstar Games
Original engine	RenderWare (Criterion)
Definitive Edition engine	Unreal Engine 4, built by Grove Street Games
Year the game takes place	1986
Playable protagonist	Tommy Vercetti
Map structure	Two main islands plus Starfish Island and Prawn Island
Radio stations	9
Hidden packages	100
Unique stunt jumps	36
Rampages	35
Original age rating	ESRB M (17+), PEGI 18
Metacritic (PS2, 2002)	95
Prequel	Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006, set in 1984)

The story

Tommy Vercetti has just finished a fifteen-year sentence for the Harwood Incident, a 1971 hit in Liberty City that left eleven men dead and made him too hot for the Forelli crime family to keep around. His old boss, Sonny Forelli, now wants him out of sight again. So Sonny sends Tommy south to Vice City with a briefcase of Forelli money and instructions to open a cocaine pipeline.

The deal goes wrong in the first cutscene. Tommy walks away from the docks with no money, no product and a very angry Sonny on the phone. Everything that follows is Tommy clawing back what he lost and then deciding that he would rather own the city than return any of it.

That is the spoiler-light version. I have put the full arc below for anyone who wants the complete briefing.

The opening ambush got a second life in 2006. Vice City Stories, the PSP prequel, made Victor Vance its protagonist, which means the man who dies in Vice City’s first thirty seconds is a character players spent twenty hours with. Rockstar has quietly done this sort of retroactive connective tissue ever since.

The city and map

Vice City is Miami filtered through Scarface and Miami Vice, and the map is two long islands separated by a stretch of water with two small islands in between. You start on the eastern island and the western one unlocks after the mission “Phnom Penh ’86”, when Diaz’s hurricane warning lifts the bridge closures.

Vice City Beach (east island) holds the tourist side: Ocean Beach with Tommy’s first safehouse at the Ocean View Hotel, Washington Beach with the police station and Ken Rosenberg’s office, Vice Point with the North Point Mall and the Malibu Club, and the Leaf Links golf course up the middle.

Vice City Mainland (west island) is where the money and the mess live. Downtown has the VCN building, the Hyman Memorial Stadium, Kaufman Cabs and the V-Rock tower. Little Havana and Little Haiti sit south of it and host the Cuban and Haitian gang storylines. Viceport is the docks where the game begins, Escobar International Airport sits at the southwest corner, and Fort Baxter Air Base, home of the Hunter helicopter, sits just north of it.

Starfish Island between the two is a row of mansions, one of which becomes Tommy’s. Prawn Island to the north holds the InterGlobal Films studio, another Tommy asset.

Compared with GTA III’s Liberty City the map is similar in size but far more open. Long beachfront roads, a flat layout and the absence of GTA III’s constant underpasses made it the first GTA city that was fun just to drive around in. Rockstar leaned into that with the stunt jumps and with the PCJ-600, which remains one of the best-feeling vehicles the series has produced.

Collectibles follow the GTA III template: 100 hidden packages that unlock weapon spawns at your safehouses, 35 rampages and 36 unique stunt jumps. Full completion also needs all asset businesses turned profitable and the stadium events, taxi, vigilante, paramedic, firefighter and pizza delivery side jobs cleared.

The radio

The soundtrack is the part people remember first, and with good reason. Nine stations cover 1986 almost genre by genre: Wildstyle for early hip hop, Flash FM and Wave 103 for pop and new wave, Fever 105 for soul and funk, V-Rock for metal, Emotion 98.3 for power ballads, Radio Espantoso for Latin, and K-Chat and VCPR for talk.

The original 2002 discs carried both Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'”, Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize” blasting out of V-Rock, and Luther Vandross’s “Never Too Much” on Fever 105. Licensing is why that matters today. When Rockstar updated the Steam version in late 2012 and built the mobile port, a handful of tracks were cut, and the Michael Jackson songs went with them. The Definitive Edition inherited the trimmed tracklist. If you want the exact 2002 station lineup you need an original disc or an unpatched PC copy.

Characters

Vice City was the first GTA to put recognisable Hollywood names in the credits, and the cast is still one of the strongest Rockstar has assembled.

Character	Voice actor	Role
Tommy Vercetti	Ray Liotta	Forelli enforcer turned city boss, the playable lead
Ken Rosenberg	William Fichtner	Nervous, cocaine-addled lawyer and Tommy’s first ally
Lance Vance	Philip Michael Thomas	Partner, pilot, eventual traitor; Thomas played Tubbs in Miami Vice
Ricardo Diaz	Luis Guzmán	Drug lord who orders the opening ambush
Sonny Forelli	Tom Sizemore	Tommy’s old boss in Liberty City
Colonel Juan García Cortez	Robert Davi	Military contact with a yacht full of favours
Avery Carrington	Burt Reynolds	Property developer who teaches Tommy about real estate
Phil Cassidy	Gary Busey	Arms dealer with a fondness for explosives
Mitch Baker	Lee Majors	Leader of the Vice City Bikers
Steve Scott	Dennis Hopper	Film director at InterGlobal Studios
Candy Suxxx	Jenna Jameson	Adult film star Tommy signs to the studio
Umberto Robina	Danny Trejo	Head of the Cuban gang in Little Havana
Kent Paul	Danny Dyer	English music industry hanger-on

Tommy himself is the big shift. GTA III’s Claude never spoke, so every mission had the giver talking at a mute. Tommy argues, threatens and jokes in cutscenes, and Liotta brought the same coiled energy he used in Goodfellas. Lance is the other standout: likeable and loyal for most of the game, which makes the ending land. Lazlow’s V-Rock bits and the Maurice Chavez segments on VCPR fill in the satire around the edges.

The supporting roster also includes Auntie Poulet, the Haitian gang matriarch who drugs Tommy to get him working for her, BJ Smith the retired football star, and Alex Shrub, a congressman with a secret. Most of these characters appear only for three or four missions, but each has a distinct storyline rather than being another face handing out jobs.

What it changed for the series

Vice City was built in roughly a year, starting life as a GTA III expansion before growing into a full sequel. That it introduced as much as it did in that window is the real achievement.

• A voiced, named protagonist. Every GTA lead since Tommy has had a voice and an arc, from CJ to Lucia and Jason.
• A period setting. This was the first GTA set in the past, and it proved the franchise could do era-specific worldbuilding, a lesson San Andreas (1992) and Vice City Stories (1984) followed.
• Buying property. Safehouses were purchasable, and asset businesses generated income once their mission chains were done. GTA Online’s entire business economy, from nightclubs to agencies, descends from the Malibu Club.
• Motorbikes and helicopters. GTA III had neither as usable vehicles. Vice City added the PCJ-600, Freeway, Sanchez and Faggio alongside the Maverick, Sparrow, Sea Sparrow and the armed Hunter.
• Interiors. The Malibu Club, North Point Mall, Pole Position Club and Vercetti Estate were walkable spaces, not painted doors.
• Changeable outfits. Tommy could switch between a dozen outfits at his properties, some of which cleared wanted levels.
• Melee variety. The chainsaw, katana, machete, hammer and golf club replaced GTA III’s bat-and-fists approach.
• Sniper and heavy weapons overhaul. The PSG-1, M4, Ruger, Colt Python and minigun all arrived here.
• Big-name licensed music and voice casting. Rockstar’s willingness to spend on talent and catalogue starts with this game.

The one thing it did not change was mission structure. No checkpoints, no mid-mission saves, and a few infamous difficulty spikes. “Demolition Man”, where you plant bombs with an RC helicopter, and “Death Row”, a timed dash to rescue Lance, are still the two missions I see people quit on.

Versions and re-releases

Vice City has been sold in enough forms that choosing one actually matters. Here is the full lineage.

Version	Year	Notes
PlayStation 2	2002	Original release, full soundtrack, 480i
PC (Windows)	2003	Higher resolutions, mouse aiming, custom MP3 radio station, mod support
Xbox (GTA Double Pack)	2003	Bundled with GTA III, improved character models and reflections
Mac	2010	Port of the PC version
iOS / Android 10th Anniversary	2012	Touch controls, trimmed soundtrack, later delisted
PS4 (PS2 Classic)	2013	Upscaled PS2 version with trophies, later delisted
The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition	2021	Unreal Engine 4 remaster, modern controls, GTA V-style weapon wheel, checkpoints added, trimmed soundtrack
Definitive Edition mobile	2023	Standalone purchase or via Netflix Games

The 2003 PC version is the one I keep installed. It runs at any resolution, takes mods like the widescreen fix and the SilentPatch bug fixes, and the “MP3” station lets you rebuild the missing tracks yourself. It is also the version the modding scene has kept alive for two decades, in the same way “gta 5 mods” keep that game fresh.

The Definitive Edition is the easiest to buy and the most comfortable to control. GTA V-style aiming, a weapon and radio wheel, mission restart from checkpoints and 4K output on current consoles remove most of the 2002 friction. The trade-off is the art. Grove Street Games’ upscaling produced the plastic character faces and heavy rain that got the trilogy pilloried at launch in November 2021. Rockstar issued a public apology, pulled the PC version from sale for days and temporarily gave buyers the classic PC trilogy as compensation. The November 2024 update, credited to Video Games Deluxe, added a classic lighting toggle and a long bug fix list, and the game is genuinely in a much better state now than its launch reputation suggests.

Which to play: if you want the authentic 1986 experience with the full radio, use an original PS2 disc or the classic PC version with community patches. If you want to finish the story without fighting the controls, the Definitive Edition with classic lighting on is the right call.

Where to play it today

As of October 2026, your options are split cleanly between the Definitive Edition and the classic PC build.

• PlayStation 5 and PS4: The Definitive Edition. The 2013 PS2 Classic version was delisted in 2021 and only plays if it is already in your library.
• Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One: The Definitive Edition. The original 2003 Xbox version is not backward compatible.
• Nintendo Switch and Switch 2: The Definitive Edition, which runs at the lowest settings of any console version. Expect frame rate dips in Downtown.
• PC: Both. The Definitive Edition is on Steam, the Epic Games Store and the Rockstar Store. The classic Vice City is sold in the original GTA Trilogy bundle on the Rockstar Store only, since Rockstar removed it from Steam in 2021.
• Mobile: The Definitive Edition, free with a Netflix subscription or as a paid app. The 2012 10th Anniversary version is gone from the App Store and Google Play.
• Subscriptions: The Definitive Edition rotates through GTA+, PlayStation Plus Extra and Xbox Game Pass. Check the current catalogue rather than trusting old listings, because those deals change quarterly.

A final note on cheats, since they are part of the Vice City ritual for a lot of players.

Reception and legacy

Vice City reviewed as well as any game of its generation. The PS2 version holds a 95 on Metacritic, one point above GTA III, and critics in 2002 singled out the voice cast, the radio and the sheer density of 1980s detail. It was the best-selling game of 2002 and Take-Two later reported lifetime sales of 17.5 million copies, and as of July 2006 it stood as the best-selling PS2 game of all time.

The controversy arrived in 2003. Haitian and Cuban community groups in New York and Florida objected to in-game lines like “kill the Haitians” and “kill the Cubans”, which were mission dialogue rather than player instructions. Rockstar removed the offending lines from later pressings, and the episode became an early template for the GTA outrage cycle that Hot Coffee would supercharge two years later.

Its design legacy is everywhere in Rockstar’s later work. The property and business system became GTA Online’s backbone. The voiced protagonist with a visible arc became the house style. The commitment to a single period and a single real-world city, rendered through satire rather than straight recreation, became the template Rockstar used for Los Santos and for Red Dead’s frontier.

And then there is the sequel nobody has stopped talking about. The first GTA 6 trailer in December 2023 confirmed the series is returning to Vice City, this time as part of the larger state of Leonida. The “release date for gta 6” is now CONFIRMED by Rockstar as 19 November 2026 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S after two public delays. Every frame of the trailers has been compared against the 2002 map by the “gta 6 map” community, and the Ocean Drive hotels, the lighthouse and the causeway bridges all appear to be returning in some form. For anyone who wants to understand what Rockstar is reinterpreting, Tommy’s version of the city is the primary source.

FAQ

When did GTA Vice City come out?

It launched on PlayStation 2 on 27 October 2002 in North America and 8 November 2002 in Europe. The PC version followed on 12 May 2003, the standalone Xbox version on 31 October 2003 with the GTA Double Pack bundle arriving in November 2003, and the Definitive Edition on 11 November 2021.

What year is GTA Vice City set in?

1986. It was the first Grand Theft Auto set in the past, and the prequel Vice City Stories moves the clock back further to 1984.

Who voices Tommy Vercetti?

Ray Liotta, best known for Goodfellas. He recorded the role in 2002 and later said publicly that he felt underpaid for how large the game became. Liotta died in May 2022.

Is Vice City in GTA 6?

Yes, CONFIRMED. Rockstar’s trailers show GTA 6 set in a modern-day Vice City inside the fictional state of Leonida, with a release date of 19 November 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. A PC version has not been announced.

Does the Definitive Edition have the full soundtrack?

No. It uses the trimmed tracklist from the 2012 re-releases, so “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'” are absent along with a few other licensed songs. Only original 2002 and 2003 discs and pre-2012 PC installs carry everything.

How long does Vice City take to finish?

The main story runs around 20 hours for a first playthrough. Full 100 percent completion, including all 100 hidden packages, every asset business and all side jobs, is closer to 35 to 40 hours. The Definitive Edition’s checkpoints shave time off the hardest missions.