As the dust settles on the record-breaking GTA 6 Trailer 2, fans have begun to establish various plot and gameplay theories, some of which do indeed make a lot of sense. Where the ‘Liberty City is in GTA 6’ theory stands between ‘no-chance’ and ‘sure thing’ remains to be seen, however.
Liberty City is the GTA series’ take on New York City, and was the setting for 2008’s GTA 4 as well as 2009 spin-off GTA: Chinatown Wars. GTA 6 is set in the fictional state of Leonida (Florida), which includes Vice City, GTA’s take on Miami. Vice City and Liberty City, like their real-world counterparts, are situated over a thousand miles apart.
But could GTA 6 also include, perhaps eventually, Liberty City? Some fans think there is evidence in Trailer 2 to suggest that might be on the cards.
There are a number of mentions of Liberty City in Trailer 2 and the accompanying screenshots. For example, Trailer 2 features a Liberty City license plate. Meanwhile, one of the new screenshots includes a Liberty City hat.
Man wearing Liberty City Cycles cap. (4/10) pic.twitter.com/jXVikKP6pJ
— Grand Theft Auto 6 Alerts (@GTA6Alerts) May 11, 2025
Here’s one of the big clues fans have been debating since last week: protagonist Lucia is actually from Liberty City, or at the very least has family there and lived there.
Do you think Liberty City is making a return in GTA 6? 🤔💭
• Lucia is from Liberty City
• Liberty City license plate
• Liberty City Cycles hatLots of Liberty City mentions 👀 pic.twitter.com/dQLjXQGgBf
— GTA 6+ (@GTA6Plus) May 12, 2025
Now, it’s worth saying what all this is: pure speculation. These Liberty City references may be nothing more than references. Including Liberty City in GTA 6 as well as the announced map would be an enormous (even more enormous!) undertaking for Rockstar. And it’s worth noting that that there is plenty of skepticism about the Liberty City theory online. Many, many fans think it’s simply not going to happen.
But the hopeful fans point out Rockstar has form when it comes to having multiple cities or even states within a single GTA game, and they could suggest how a trip to Liberty City might work in GTA 6.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for example, includes a mission where you fly by plane to Liberty City. You fly off the map, which triggers a cutscene, and you’re in Liberty City for a mission. Perhaps GTA 6 could include something similar, or even just have missions straight up set in Liberty City. Maybe Lucia has a prologue mission set there, or we get to play out the events that occurred in Liberty City that ended up with her in jail in Vice City.
So, the fact that Liberty City is geographically so far away from Vice City that it will be impossible to drive there in GTA 6 (in real life it would take 19 hours without stopping), there could be other ways to get there, and certainly plenty of uses for the map.
What is perhaps more likely, if Liberty City is planned for GTA 6 at all, is a DLC that expands the game. Perhaps Rockstar will expand GTA 6 with new maps over the years, using the airport as a hub to reach them. In this way, GTA 6 could end up being the GTA to end all GTAs, a gargantuan platform that sets the franchise and whatever the next version of GTA Online looks like for years, maybe even decades to come.
While we wait to find out, we’ve got plenty more on GTA 6, including all the details we’ve discovered so far, a roundup of 70 brand new screenshots, and the expert opinion on how GTA 6 will look on PS5 Pro.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
