With GTA 6 due on November 19, Rockstar and Take-Two have stopped waiting for you to come to Vice City and started bringing Vice City to you. Over the weekend of October 15 and 16, people in Miami started posting photos of cars that look like they drove straight out of the game: a Lamborghini done up in Vice Beach PD livery, Vice City Police Department cruisers, colourful body kits, and numberplates that match the Leonida plates from an earlier tease.
The clever bit is that none of it shouts the game's name. There's a blimp with the logo on it and planes trailing banners, sure, but the cars just quietly exist on real roads with the right plates, waiting to be filmed. The sightings were shared by accounts like iGrandTheftAuto and ONLY in DADE, which is rather the point: this is marketing built to travel on its own.
Vice City is becoming a place you can stand in
Push Square reports the stunt is wider than a few cars. Branding is going up around the city, and the Miami Heat are reportedly getting a one-night Vice City rebrand for their November 18 game against Milwaukee, the night before launch. It's the kind of saturation campaign only a game expecting to sell to everyone's nan can justify.
Is it a bit much? Obviously. But it's also the first time the hype has felt tangible rather than trailer-shaped. After this week's launch trailer, which held the November 19 date, Rockstar clearly reckons the game sells itself and the job now is just keeping Vice City in your feed until release day. On that measure, a cop car with the wrong badge parked outside a diner does the job.
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