With just weeks to go until GTA 6 launches, Rockstar Games has decided to shift its marketing up a gear and really crank up the pressure. And what's happening right now is something fairly unprecedented, not to say jaw-dropping. In Miami, the city that inspired Vice City, residents are gradually watching elements lifted straight out of GTA 6 turn up on their doorstep. Fictional restaurants, sports cars in the game's colours, adverts for made-up brands and even beers that normally only exist within the series — Rockstar Games is turning the city into one giant promotional stunt. You'll remember, of course, that the Scottish studio had already announced a collaboration with the Miami Heat, the city's basketball team, which will temporarily take the name Vice City for an event held on 18 November, the day before the game's release. But fans have since discovered that the operation goes far further than anyone expected. And judging by the images doing the rounds on social media, Rockstar fully intends to turn Miami into a life-size extension of its blockbuster.
Vice City is the real Miami
The first change was spotted at the Kaseya Center, the very arena where the Miami Heat play. Visitors have been able to discover the famous Burger Shot and Cluckin' Bell, two fast food chains well known to GTA players. In the games, these outlets have been part of the scenery for several instalments, but this time in Miami they've taken on a very real form, complete with staff kitted out in GTA 6 colours. For Burger Shot, in fact, Rockstar Games had Skinny Louie — a burger chain already operating locally — converted for the occasion. On top of that, alongside the Miami Heat game, where the team will play on a court specially decked out in the game's colours and wear a GTA 6 kit, exclusive merchandise will also be on sale at the Kaseya Center.
But you only have to step outside the arena to grasp the scale of the marketing campaign. Adverts inspired by Rockstar's universe have been spotted all over Miami. Digital billboards are running ads for fictional brands such as Fruit, Coil and eCola, while Weazel News, the news channel players know so well, has also muscled its way into the cityscape. Radio station Chamber 106.6 is among the brands being pushed too, alongside the Y Hotel, the Vault nightclub and Big Chug. On Miami Beach, the transformation is even more visible. Pink and blue Vice City-branded parasols and sun loungers have appeared on the sand, with security guards drafted in overnight to stop fans walking off with the promotional gear.
Better still, an airship in GTA 6 colours regularly flies over the beach, while billboards mounted on boats have been promoting the Vault Nightclub, a fictional venue that'll feature in the game. Rockstar Games has pushed the concept to vehicles as well, with several sports cars driving around sporting Vice City number plates and eye-wateringly colourful paint jobs that once again nod to GTA 6. One Chevrolet Corvette, for instance, was turned into a Coquette, the fictional model well known to GTA fans, while a Lamborghini in Vice Beach police livery has also been spotted.
GTA's fictional beers made real
The campaign extends into the bars too, with adverts for Pißwasser and Patriot, two fictional GTA beer brands, spotted outside several Miami establishments. And it isn't purely a poster job either: filings submitted by Tripping Animals Brewing (a Florida-based brewery) mention labels for Pißwasser and Patriot. Which suggests Rockstar Games is preparing to put these drinks on sale for real.
All of it speaks to Rockstar's outsized marketing ambitions for its next blockbuster. The studio could quite happily skip the whole campaign, given the game hardly needs any help flying off the shelves, but the idea is also to make this euphoric moment stick in the memory for good. In doing so, Rockstar Games is proving it's a studio apart, one of a kind, whatever it decides to take on.
Grand Theft Auto VI is due on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on 19 November 2026 — though I think everyone's well aware of that by now.
