GTA 6 Map Is Twice GTA 5's Size, Says Rockstar's Garbut
Rockstar now has a senior developer on the record about how big the GTA 6 map is, and the answer is "about twice GTA 5's". As of 1 October, that comes from Game Informer's issue 382 cover story, which quotes Rockstar North co-studio head Aaron Garbut. We're labelling it Reported. The full story sits behind Game Informer's paywall on the web, so the wording reaches us through outlets that read it. Rockstar hasn't posted the figure itself.
What Garbut said, as outlets relay it
Insider Gaming writes that Garbut calls Leonida the biggest map Rockstar has ever made "by some degree", and that he puts it at around twice the size of the map in GTA 5. VICE's rundown says the same: Leonida is the largest map the studio has created, roughly twice the size of GTA 5's. NME carries a direct quote from the story, and it is about density, not size:
"We obsessed about every part – the rooftops, the alleys, the internals and everything in between to the point we hit a critical mass with the numbers of our interiors, and you start to feel the buildings are more real inside and out."
That is the part Rockstar wants you to remember. The pitch is a map that is bigger and fuller, with more enterable buildings than before. Garbut gave no area in square kilometres or miles, according to Insider Gaming.
It backs up a creator's claim from August
This isn't the first time "twice GTA 5" has circulated. In August the YouTuber TGG said he visited Rockstar North, watched about three hours of the game and came back with several comparisons, including a map twice the size of GTA V's. PC Gamer reported it at the time, and we kept it at Reported because it came through a creator. Game Informer's story puts the same ratio in a Rockstar developer's mouth, which is a stronger source. It's still a second-hand relay of a magazine article we couldn't read in full, so the badge stays where it is.
The other number Rockstar gave doesn't line up neatly
On 27 August, the day of the Extended Look, Rockstar told The New York Times the map is three times the playable area of Red Dead Redemption 2. We cover that in our Extended Look breakdown. Insider Gaming notes that RDR2's map is only slightly bigger than GTA 5's. Put the two statements side by side and "three times RDR2" and "twice GTA 5" don't obviously describe the same size.
Rockstar hasn't explained the gap. One plausible reading is that the two comparisons count different things, such as playable land against the whole map including open water. That is our guess, not anything Rockstar has said. Until the studio publishes an area, treat both as scale hints.
Why a number still isn't a number
Some outlets have already multiplied GTA 5's area by two and printed square kilometres. Insider Gaming does it in its own write-up. That is the outlet's arithmetic, built on a GTA 5 figure that depends on whether you count water. It's not a Rockstar measurement, and we won't quote it as one.
"Twice" also says nothing about how the space is used. The same story is where Game Informer's reporting says Rockstar leaned on interiors, rooftops and alleys. Our gameplay guide has the other details the issue made public, from tropical storms to more than 170 animal species.
What this changes on the map
Nothing about the geography. Rockstar's own site still lists six regions: Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga National Park. There is no official map yet. If you want the regions and what Rockstar says about each, start with our Leonida map guide, which we've updated with this new quote.
If a full map shows up before launch from anywhere other than Rockstar, assume it's a fan reconstruction or a fake. Our explainer on spotting fake leaks covers the checks.
What to watch next
Three things would move this item. A Rockstar post or interview giving an area, or saying what "twice" counts, would let us upgrade the claim. The full Game Informer text, once someone we can verify quotes the surrounding paragraph, would show whether "twice" is Garbut's own wording or a summary by the writer. And any official map would end the guessing. We'll fold confirmed changes into our running list of what's confirmed about GTA 6.
Launch day is 19 November on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and the countdown keeps the live clock. For the source behind today's story, here is Game Informer's own cover story page. Its free parts are the opening and the two weather and wildlife exclusives we covered in our Game Informer cover story post.