(SPOILERS!!!!!!) GTA VI ""Leaks"" Analysis Thread

[nicktestbranch]

Welcome to the GTA VI Leaks Analysis thread! For sources regarding leaks previously discussed, please see the archive here.

 

February 2023 Leak - [DEBUNKED]

 

July 7 2021 Leak - [DEBUNKED]

 

May 2021 Leak:

 

Spoiler

Summary coming soon to talk about the "enhanced" map from the 2018/20 leaks.

 

Edit: I'm too lazy, I'll link an analysis if someone else has thoughts on it.

 

December 2018/October 2020 Leak - Unverified

 

Spoiler

This is my best take on this potentially leaked map. The earliest reference I can find of it on the GTA Forums is dating back to December 2018.

This one was the one posted in the thread, showing what we are guessing to be Vice City, swamplands, and an island off the coast to the West.

 

 

This image was also posted on the same day, December 19, 2018. Noticeably, only part of the map is detailed with the rest being laid out in what appears to be an inconsistent style that looks like the beginning of a fanmade GTA San Andreas map. However, this image recently came up again, and the following picture came out on October 9, 2020 on a 4chan thread. 

 

 

This particular island correlates with the unfinished island in the southern portion of the map above, minus a few changed details such as where the island is split by the sea. Most noticeably, however, is the lake in the middle of it, and the city that wraps around the western portion. Here is the original version of that same island from the Dec 19, 2018 leak:

 

This update is what prompted me to take a look into the leak again, and potentially eat my own words to analyze what all we have currently. The following is all speculation based on slight reasoning, with credit given to others as much as possible since I’m not the only one to dig deep into it. So first, let’s take a look at everything we have so far. Combining the two leaks, two years apart, into one image with dots laying out an idea of where settlements and airports are, this is what we get:

 

 

It’s fairly easy to guess where Miami is, despite the likelihood that Rockstar’s reimagining of Vice City involves moving it up north on the main island. It’s also now obvious that the gray areas represent cities/suburban areas, and so on. The main island does not have its roads completely leaked yet, as it’s clear that the left side as leaked in 2018 did not get that far along in development yet. It’s likely that in 2020 they may have that area finished or drawn completely. At the moment, we only have the East Coast and the two large islands to look at.

 

One of the biggest concerns came from whether or not the source of the topography in the leaks is from satellite imagery. I’m going to take a look at an aerial from Miami, and compare it with the “1985” satellite of Vice City.

 

 

When bringing them side-by-side, there is noticeably a large difference in distance, detail, and scale. For me most noticeably, the airport on the left only shows two runways, and comes in diagonally when looking at it from a north-is-up perspective (great terminology). On top of that, there is a nearby racetrack and casino in both images, likely correlating with the Hialeah Racing and Casino. With that concern, the scaling is rather similar to GTA V’s layout and is not meant to be a perfect replica of Miami. To go an extra step, let’s pretend that the Los Santos Airport is the same distance as Vice City’s. Using the GTA V scale from cptlande the airport is approximately a kilometer long.

 

 

This is not an exact scale, but is intended to come as close to possible with what we have at the moment since we technically only have a few images from this leak. However, the airport is just enough to spur our imaginations. In taking that same scale, I have reapplied it to the GTA VI Map, and built a KM precisely on the unit as compared to the airport. The Mainland is about 5-7 KM long from West to East, expanding as it goes north. When comparing it to the GTA V map, I believe it’s a similar set. If we’re to believe that Rockstar Games continues building on their scale, then we may have evidence that this is a legitimate map.

 

 

This scale does not include the freshly-leaked southeast island as I have yet to superimpose it against the original sketch, and base a scale off of it yet. But it is doable.

 

For now, this is what we’ve got. When comparing it to how the Red Dead Redemption II map was when it leaked, it looks like a totally different process and a fan-made map that has gone too far in recognition. As I compare the images though against Google Earth, Maps, and Bing’s satellite images, Miami is not a dead ringer in this rendition of what we believe to be Vice City, and the best evidence to go against it is that despite the low resolution, you can tell it is not several satellite images mixed together as that would take a ton of time to create something without obvious stitching.

 

As for my belief, I think this map leak is credible solely on how an extra piece leaked out this week and corroborated one of the islands. This isn’t likely to be someone with a ton of free time to make up a leak due to how elaborate it would be to go into the work of creating something with high detail, only to shrink all of that hard work into a half-pixelated image. We won’t have the facts until the first footage of GTA VI comes out, but at this stage I'm leaning towards this is too elaborate to be fake.

 

My theory on why the map is laid out nothing like the Red Dead Redemption II map leak from a few years ago is mainly based on how a map is processed in a game studio. Since it would require many departments to work on their own, it’s likely that they have separate iterations of the same map for different purposes. Which department had an employee leak the RDR II map, I’m not entirely sure. In this instance, I would suspect that the rendered portions of the map came from somebody who had a chance to take a quick picture of it via phone, and they drew out the unfinished portions either to memory, or based on a drawing that allowed the leaker to stitch it together the best they could.

 

I’m looking forward to your thoughts on what you think so far. I will speculate further on the locations as time allows, and I hope to see more theories come up before the next big revelation happens.

 

Vestawa Island Leak (14 Oct 2020) - Unverified

 

Spoiler

This comes from a post that showed up on the fifth page of this thread a month ago. I may end up analyzing this for fun and hearing every reason it's not real. See below:

 

  

On 10/14/2020 at 3:59 PM, The Mexican From Vice said:

https://imgur.com/a/66qCLa8

 

The URL leads to this image:

 

 

Something I somehow didn't catch the last time was that the "Mexican from Vice" is referring to a supposed character leak that I will source later in this spoiler box.

 

At this time I really, really doubt this map's credibility. "Miami/Vice" is literally the same satellite image I grabbed from Google Maps to compare it to the map in the first spoiler box. When I tested the Vestawa map out in Paint.NET to adjust brightness settings, and what struck this as an unusual attempt at a fake is that it's nearly impossible to see the monitor frames, let alone the rest of the room. If we pretend it's a Rockstar Employee, they purposely lit up their screen bright and dimmed the brightness on what is presumably a phone. It's pretty bad though. The image consists of two shots of the same screen, combined into one composite I guess to give it some variables in case one blurrier shot makes it harder to analyze how fake it is?

 

 

The island on the bottom left corner is Marquesas Keys/Mooney Harbor, slightly west of Key West itself. Again, I'm not sure why it's being referenced with a convenient yellow circle as I don't believe it lines up with anything on Vestawa Island either.

 

 

There's not really as much to look into deeply. I'd like to see someone colour-correct the island and eliminate the squares, or redraw the map as well as its remote islands. I can't tell if Vestawa Island is supposed to be a central American location. Out of curiosity, I talked to GTA_VI_LEAK on Reddit (I don't believe they're credible, just an oddly dedicated fan keeping the lie open) about this map, asking if the system used in squaring was based on anything similar he saw in his "line of work."

 

 

"The Map." I think previously GTA_VI_Leak debunked the older map based on the one he had seen; I don't have a source for it. However, he says he has seen the map consisting of Carcer City, Liberty City, and Vice City, which can be flown or driven to. Similar to the zoom out effect on the three characters in GTA V, the camera system detects how far you've driven/flown to those locations, and basically teleports you when you've past the coordinates. It reminds me a bit of how flying to Liberty City in GTA San Andreas in the one mission teleports you to the interior for the remainder of it. So GTA_VI_Leak still posts promising a "big update" in a few days or so (sound familiar?) and I implore someone who has experience with drawing fan maps to reach out to him.

 

 

Now, I'm not asking for someone to troll him. Instead, I would actually like to see their vision laid out as they claim it looks, and in the best GTA Forums presentation we can give it. Whether it's real or fake, it gives us something regardless. What else do you think armchair detectives do when police release a sketch of someone? This is what their map looks like currently. Totally detailed.

 

 

For context, click this spoiler, it's sourced from this post:

Spoiler

I get this is not the standard most people were expecting, but, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m no artist. This is really good by my standards ‘:).

Edit: let me explain it briefly. The city to the bottom left is Vice City. To the right is Cottonmouth. There is no briefer between me, that’s my impression of the highway between them. Swamp lands are to the south and surrounding areas. There’s a lot of country land around the state.

The top left city is Carcer City. I’ve used boxes to represent the towns and cities. Across the bridge to the right is Liberty City. To the north, there’s a small forest and mountainous range. To the very right from Cottonmouth to Liberty is an extremely long highway. From the size of the rest of the map, I can only assume this highway is ginormous. You can drive across this, but it’s very rigid. You can’t stray off. Attempt to fly over and you’ll zoom.

The other highways and roads with the lines over them will zoom you when you attempt to drive on them. When you zoom between the North and South, toke will pass six hours.

I didn’t draw it because I’m not sure what it will look like, but underneath the South is South America. In between the two is an expansive sea.

Edit Edit: I don’t know what the town between Carcer City and Liberty City is. I’ve seen the map (though I’m sure it will change slightly before the final version is released), and there was no explanation for that range.

Edit Edit Edit: to whomever suggested this was actually a marketing strategy and I was supposed to ‘leak’ this information, hopefully this crude sketch will show you otherwise.

Edit Edit Edit Edit: I might get a friend to create the map digitally in good detail if that’s something you guys would be interested in.

 

Back to the Mexican from Vice. It's a one-day profile, came for a visit just to post that image, and left. Since I can't see their IP address or analyze origin, nothing will come up. Reverse searching Vestawa Island comes up nothing.

 

I still believe that concept is bogus but it's fascinating, would love to see fan renditions of it. So much for this post dedicated to Vestawa Island, but I'm left with only three possibilities:

 

1. It's fake

2. It's real

3. It's real, but it's actually the map for Far Cry 6.

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by nicktestbranch
Editing OP

[DeltaV20]

Nice , Arthur.

[Patrizio]

Great topic mate. This gives me a little hope and hype that had all but disappeared.

[Franceskrt]

good job bro

[GTAhare]

Excellent job! At first coming to the conclusion that this may be real left me feeling somewhat disappointed but the more I look at this map the more it actually seems clever. Vice City appears to be a lot more dense than Los Santos plus we have a South American city as well. That’s already two cities plus presumably a vast ocean. Two cities that will be completely different can certainly last a decade. I’m actually hoping this is real now!

[Len Lfc]

23 minutes ago, Patrizio said:

Great topic mate. This gives me a little hope and hype that had all but disappeared.

Wait, people are beginning to get hope again!!!!!?? 

 

[ArthurZussman]

2 minutes ago, Len Lfc said:

Wait, people are beginning to get hope again!!!!!?? 

 

Aw sh*t, here we go again...

[universetwisters]

I remember saying the leak is fake because of how textureless the highways are and the road layout is just randomized grids. If it does turn out to be legit, though, I'll be pretty surprised.

[Collibosher]

I said this already on the last thread a year ago, but the countryside and it's roads are in different scale from the city and those country roads are clearly drawn over the forests etc. and also they're blank grey... This doesn't of course rule it out being a legit R* CONCEPT, but it's just looks exactly like the GTA maps I do just for fun using Bing maps footage 

[Orthur]

Wow, this was an amazing read! I'm now thinking this could be legit.

[YNNEL]

Sometimes you just get a feeling and the feeling for me is that this is legit. Great analysis though.

[thecoolfattykid]

I always thought this leak was real but i couldn't properly justify why i believed it. I'm happy you made this post and put forth why it could be real with reasoning 

[GTAhare]

One interesting thing to note is that although this Vice City might be around the same size as Los Santos it is WAY more dense, like Liberty City. Instead of massive highways you have a bunch of small roads. Guys, this could easily be the biggest and most detailed city yet. If this is real this game isn’t only going to be MASSIVE, it’ll feel massive too. Just Vice City alone sells it for me. Even if it doesn’t have many interiors it still looks like it’ll feel massive and be a lot of fun driving through. Go on a rampage and then drive to the beach then drive to the swamps in the countryside, relax in one of the towns, then steal a chopper and go to the South American island, and experience a totally different atmosphere.

[nicktestbranch]

29 minutes ago, universetwisters said:

I remember saying the leak is fake because of how textureless the highways are and the road layout is just randomized grids. If it does turn out to be legit, though, I'll be pretty surprised.

I felt the same way and even found a comment on there where I said as a massive BS'er, this was too much BS. Looking at it now, I realize that the left side of the mainland wasn't finished. There were meant to be more roads out there. I got that idea from looking at the keys, which as they're drawn now do not have roads either but it's safe to guess that they would later on in development.

[universetwisters]

1 minute ago, Arthur Bell said:

I felt the same way and even found a comment on there where I said as a massive BS'er, this was too much BS. Looking at it now, I realize that the left side of the mainland wasn't finished. There were meant to be more roads out there. I got that idea from looking at the keys, which as they're drawn now do not have roads either but it's safe to guess that they would later on in development.

 

But why would they model (or make up a fake satellite image) for half of the island while leaving the other half bare af?

[Len Lfc]

8 minutes ago, Arthur Bell said:

I felt the same way and even found a comment on there where I said as a massive BS'er, this was too much BS. Looking at it now, I realize that the left side of the mainland wasn't finished. There were meant to be more roads out there. I got that idea from looking at the keys, which as they're drawn now do not have roads either but it's safe to guess that they would later on in development.

I don't even think the highways are too big. If they're 3 lane roads, 6 lanes total. Then yeah, of course they'll be a different scale. As for them looking drawn over the forest, I don't see that either. Closest I can see is where they go over the river, which would mean they're bridges, soo...

Not even trying say it's real. Being impartial, I just don't see those 'problems'.

[DusieK]

FAKE!


i hope not.

[dyz]

This map looks very rockstar in my opinion, I said that it is likely to be the GTA 6 map on reddit and they all downvoted me I posted this map again a fee months ago on this website but everyone disregarded it.

I guess only time will tell.

[Len Lfc]

4 minutes ago, dyz said:

I said that it is likely to be the GTA 6 map on reddit and they all downvoted me

In 2019 I was saying it wouldn't be announced until 2021, and I got downvoted. Even more for disagreeing with people who said it'd be announced before spring 2020. If you get downvoted by that sub, it probably means you're right.

 

[Collibosher]

4 minutes ago, Len Lfc said:

I don't even think the highways are too big. If they're 3 lane roads, 6 lanes total. Then yeah, of course they'll be a different scale. As for them looking drawn over the forest, I don't see that either. Closest I can see is where they go over the river, which would mean they're bridges, soo...

Not even trying say it's real. Being impartial, I just don't see those 'problems'.

The country road intersection is as wide as the airport. The whole city area is just white buildings next to each other, compared to the diverse selection of buildings, spacious areas and large highways going thru the city in other GTA maps.

[Len Lfc]

2 minutes ago, Collibosher said:

The country road intersection is as wide as the airport

It's pretty much the same as the intersection in GTA V.

[Orthur]

3 minutes ago, Len Lfc said:

If you get downvoted by that sub, it probably means you're right

They upvoted me saying it's more than likely fake... 

 

But I'm now convinced this could be legit. Especially after reading this post. 

 

Btw does this map leak happening in October mean anything for an announcement? I know dumb question but I wanna have hope 

[Len Lfc]

Just now, Orthur The Boah said:

But I'm now convinced this could be legit. Especially after reading this post. 

Don't be convinced of anything, it means practically nothing. It's more likely to be fake anyway. There's just no proof any which way.

 

Just now, Orthur The Boah said:

Btw does this map leak happening in October mean anything for an announcement?

No, not at all. The map is from 2018, anyway, so....

[Orthur]

1 minute ago, Len Lfc said:

No, not at all. The map is from 2018, anyway, so....

I mean the new one was leaked this week. Right?

2 minutes ago, Len Lfc said:

Don't be convinced of anything, it means practically nothing. It's more likely to be fake anyway. There's just no proof any which way.

I know you don't believe things much. But anything that prevents you from beleiving this map?, Especially after reading the post..

[Len Lfc]

2 minutes ago, Orthur The Boah said:

I mean the new one was leaked this week. Right?

I know you don't believe things much. But anything that prevents you from beleiving this map?, Especially after reading the post..

Yeah, but the map is from 2018. It's like taking a photo in 2018, and not sharing it for 2 years.

Not much to make me think it's absolutely fake. Sometimes you have to admit "I don't know". Too many people in the world are afraid to admit when they don't know something, and feel a need to pick a side, even when they don't have sufficient information. Which is dumb.

[Orthur]

2 minutes ago, Len Lfc said:

Yeah, but the map is from 2018. It's like taking a photo in 2018, and not sharing it for 2 years.

The new leaked one is from 2018 too? (I mean the one with only the second island).  Did not know that...

 

As for believing it, I thought it was 100% fake but now I think it could be legit. Seems like a lot of effort for a fake leak. Even the scale and everything. We won't find out till the trailer releases tho!

 

But nonetheless I'm happy there's something to talk about all of a sudden. Considering the past couple months have been stale in the GTA VI Community.

[Len Lfc]

1 minute ago, Orthur The Boah said:

The new leaked one is from 2018 too? (I mean the one with only the second island).  Did not know that...

No. I mean it's from the map that was posted in 2018. It just wasn't posted online until last week. So who's to say it wasn't made in 2018, either? I'm just saying, the map in general isn't new. And it happening in October means nothing. I think people have started to take the "Rockstar make announcements in October" to mean something mystical. Like anytime something happens in October, it means something significant. It doesn't. Leaks, rumours, and everything in between has no bearing on when announcements are made. Of course with the exception of the announcement being leaked 

[TimoTheFolf]

I don’t get why people are so fast to conclude that the map is even real at this point. Until we have a trailer to go off on or something similar to compare with we shouldn’t conclude it as being real at all. Sure you can have a hunch about it but that doesn’t make it legit though.

 

I also don’t buy the fact that the map couldn’t be a photoshop or a fan-make, cuz why not? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there is someone out there that’s making up all this crap just to f*ck with us. Think about it.

[Gentlebreeze]

If this is real, in which I think so. Will explain why Rockstar are probably pissed and quiet.

 

I only hope the islands aren't too far away from each other. I'm sure they will love GTA Online missions being longer.

[Americana]

I already don't like the swamps.

 

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