The GTA 6 marketing campaign is now barrelling along like the "Beijing–Shanghai" bullet train and its incomparable comfort (well, apart from Japan's Shinkansen), and Rockstar Games is proving once again that it really doesn't do anything like anyone else. A few weeks out from the game's release, the Scottish studio has just teamed up with the Miami Heat for a thoroughly improbable stunt: the NBA side will go by the name "Vice City" for one night only, for a game against the Milwaukee Bucks at the prestigious Kaseya Center. It all happens on 18 November, the eve of the game's launch. It's Rockstar's way of bringing the world of GTA 6 into the real Miami, just hours before players get to discover this new take on Vice City in-game for themselves.
Dubbed "A Night In Vice City", the special evening will see the Miami Heat play on a court designed specially for the occasion, going by the name of "The Vice City Court". The team will also wear a brand-new kit entirely reworked for the event, while various activations will be running inside the Kaseya Center throughout the night. And that's not all: to stretch the marketing push beyond the final buzzer, a Vice City-branded merch collection will be on offer to fans too. T-shirts, hoodies, crewnecks, dad caps and snapbacks will all be available, with prices ranging from 45 to 110 dollars. Some items have already started selling out.
For the past few days the stunt has had the whole internet watching, thanks to footage showing a huge "Welcome to Vice City" sign being installed on the roof of the Kaseya Center. For anyone at the back who hasn't quite joined the dots yet, a reminder that in the game Vice City is a reimagined version of Miami set within the fictional state of Leonida, itself inspired by Florida. Either way, this return to Vice City comes nearly 24 years after the city last featured in an original entry in the series, with GTA Vice City back in 2002. Among the most recent details to emerge about GTA 6, we know the playground will be twice the size of GTA 5's, with fully dynamic, localised weather. Essentially, it can be chucking it down in one area while the sun blazes a few hundred metres away. Rockstar has also confirmed that tropical storms and hurricanes will roll into our sessions as well.
GTA 6 is set for release on 19 November 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The countdown is officially on.
