If you’re on Miami Beach right now, you might be sitting under a Vice City umbrella without realizing it. Rockstar Games has put Vice City-branded umbrellas and beach chairs on the sand, and a promotional blimp has been spotted over South Florida.
This is Rockstar’s marketing push for Grand Theft Auto VI. GTA 6 is scheduled to launch on November 19, 2026, and in the run-up the studio is placing pieces of its fictional city around the real one it’s based on. Vice City is modeled on Miami, Florida, so this time the ads look like part of the game’s map.
The campaign also includes murals, billboards and branded vehicles, plus ads for fictional businesses from the game. The biggest single piece is on top of the Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat: a large illuminated ‘Welcome to Vice City’ sign.
The cars are the best part
Anyone who spent too many hours in a garage menu will get the joke. Cars resembling the Coquette, Cheetah, Tempesta, Emerus, Manana and Buccaneer have been spotted around Miami. That list puts a Manana next to an Emerus, which is about as GTA as a car lineup gets.
One of them is a Lamborghini with Vice City Police branding. You’d assume it’s out there to get photographed and posted, and it probably is.
The art world has a stake in this too. Wynwood Walls has unveiled 10 murals featuring artwork associated with GTA 6. The partnership includes free admission for Miami-Dade residents through 2028 and an official merchandise collection.
Two November parties
The Miami Heat has announced ‘A Night in Vice City’ for November 18, the night before launch, with a special court, uniforms and merchandise. Rockstar is also sponsoring a free BAYO block party in Little Haiti on November 22.
Miami gets the most attention, but other cities are getting the same treatment. Los Angeles has a large Hollywood Boulevard mural of protagonists Jason and Lucia. In New York City, GTA 6 ads have gone up in Times Square and a large mural has appeared in Brooklyn. Branded sightseeing buses have turned up in New York and Chicago.
Then there’s everything off the street. Rockstar has announced an official GTA VI album and introduced six in-game radio stations along with their hosts. The rollout also covers magazines, merchandise and digital platforms, and Rockstar has promoted limited-edition DualSense controllers with PlayStation.
All of that is official Rockstar material. The street sightings are what people have spotted around these cities, and the clearest example is still on the Kaseya Center roof, where the ‘Welcome to Vice City’ sign is lit up over downtown Miami.
