Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

• 1. Introduction

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  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a 2002 action-adventure game from Rockstar North, sold more than 500,000 copies within 24 hours of its release. Within two days it had reached 1.4 million, which made it the fastest-selling game in history at the time. Rockstar North developed it and Rockstar Games published it. It was the fourth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, and the sixth overall, following 2001's Grand Theft Auto III. The player becomes Tommy Vercetti, a gangster who builds a criminal empire in a fictional Florida city. Why would a studio set a crime game in the recent past, in a sunny city modeled on a real one? What changed when the hero finally learned to speak? And how did a game so widely praised end up facing protests, a proposed city ordinance and lawsuits? The answers start with a version of Miami that existed only on a screen, assembled from real streets, old films and a television show.

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• 2. Neon Miami

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  Vice City first appeared in the original Grand Theft Auto of 1997, and the team behind the 2002 game decided to bring it back. Grand Theft Auto III had been set in the modern-day Liberty City. This time the developers wanted to satirise a place that was not contemporary. They also wanted somewhere that resembled New York City, the inspiration for Liberty City, yet differed from it. That search ended in Miami, Florida. Producer Leslie Benzies described it as "a party town, all sun and sea and sex, but with that same dark edge underneath".

  The game itself takes place in 1986. Sam Houser called that period "the grooviest era of crime because it didn't even feel like it was crime... it was a totally topsy-turvy back-to-front period of time". The team wanted a "living, breathing city", so that players would feel that "life still goes on" while Tommy was inside a building.

  Scarface, released in 1983, and Carlito's Way, from 1993, lent the game many of its themes. The second film was valued for its nuanced criminals. The television series Miami Vice, which began in 1984, was watched regularly by the team throughout development. Art director Aaron Garbut used the show as his reference point for neon lighting. The clothing and vehicles were chosen to match the decade as well.

  Shortly after finishing Grand Theft Auto III, the team travelled to Miami on field research trips. They split into small groups and observed the streets. The art team received large volumes of research, along with reference photographs taken by colleagues. Recreating the era proved relatively painless, because the decade had such a distinct culture and the team knew it well.

  The story drew on real Miami history, including Cubans, Haitians and biker gangs, the 1980s crack epidemic, the city's Mafioso drug lords and the dominance of glam metal. The portrayal of some of those groups would later bring protesters onto the streets of New York City.

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• 3. Rise of an Empire

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  Tommy Vercetti, voiced by Ray Liotta, walks out of prison after serving a fifteen-year sentence for murder. His boss, Sonny Forelli, played by Tom Sizemore, wants to start drug operations in the South. Sonny sends Tommy to Vice City, Florida, to oversee a major deal alongside a crooked lawyer named Ken Rosenberg, played by William Fichtner. Unknown assailants ambush the exchange, and the two men barely escape. Furious, Sonny orders Tommy to recover both the drugs and the money he handed over, and he warns of consequences if Tommy fails.

  Ken points Tommy toward Juan Garcia Cortez, a retired army colonel played by Robert Davi, who had helped set up the exchange. Cortez expresses regret about the ambush and promises to learn who masterminded it. He also becomes a mentor, encouraging Tommy to act more independently of Sonny and the Forelli family.

  Kent Paul, played by Danny Dyer, manages a band and keeps connections to the city's underworld. Lance Vance, played by Philip Michael Thomas, helped with the deal and lost his brother in the ambush. Burt Reynolds plays Avery Carrington, a Texan business tycoon who enlists Tommy's help with several deals. Luis Guzmán plays the drug lord Ricardo Diaz, who employs both Tommy and Lance.

  Cortez eventually voices his suspicion that Diaz organised the ambush. Lance confirms it and, against Tommy's advice, tries to kill Diaz, but he is captured. Tommy rescues him, and together they invade Diaz's mansion and kill him.

  With Diaz dead, Tommy takes over his assets. At Avery's suggestion, he expands by forcing businesses to pay protection money and by buying nearly bankrupt companies to use as fronts for illicit operations. He forms his own gang to guard those interests, and he helps several prominent gang leaders in the hope that they will support him. When agents of the French government finally locate Cortez, Tommy helps him survive an assassination attempt. The two part amicably as the Colonel's yacht sails for safer waters.

  Sonny learns that Tommy controls the city's drug trade and has not cut the Forellis in. Enraged, he sends mobsters to collect money from Tommy's businesses by force. Tommy hunts down and kills each of them, ending his last ties to the Forelli family.

  The reckoning arrives at Tommy's mansion, where Sonny turns up with numerous men to collect what he believes he is owed. Tommy accuses him of framing him fifteen years earlier, and Sonny confirms it. He also reveals that Lance has betrayed Tommy and joined the Forellis, having felt inadequate beside Tommy since his rise. In the shootout that follows, Tommy keeps the Forellis from stealing his money, kills Lance, and finally kills Sonny. Ken and Tommy then talk, optimistically, about Tommy's status as the undisputed ruler of Vice City. Giving a man like that a voice of his own was something the development team had to work out deliberately.

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• 4. Voices and Sound

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  Claude, the silent hero of Grand Theft Auto III, never spoke, and the Vice City team spent time "solving the riddle" of how to give Tommy a voice instead. Ray Liotta called the job challenging, saying "You're creating a character that's not there before... It's so intensive". While he recorded, the team also filmed his physical performance against a blue screen to plan how the cutscenes should look. Dan Houser described Tommy as "strong and dangerous and prepared to wait for the right opportunity to arrive".

  Director Navid Khonsari found Liotta occasionally difficult to work with. Sam Houser put it this way: "In some sessions he was... into it, but then sometimes... he was very dark and couldn't work". The team still prioritised the narrative, hoping players would feel a "real affinity" for Tommy.

  Only a few of the game's animations were borrowed from Grand Theft Auto III. Motion capture drove the cutscenes, while gameplay movement combined motion capture with stop motion. Motorcycles gave the animators trouble, partly because there were so many different models. Pedestrians use skins, which let artists build more realistic characters. About 110 unique pedestrian models fill the world, alongside roughly 50 story characters. Each is built from twice as many polygons and textures as in the previous game, which also improved physics such as weapon-hit accuracy.

  Some characters and storylines took cues from The Godfather, released in 1972, while the presentation echoed action television of the 1980s. The bond between Tommy and Lance was meant to mimic that of Miami Vice's James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs.

  Vice City carries 8,000 lines of recorded dialogue, four times the amount in Grand Theft Auto III. It also holds over 90 minutes of cutscenes and nine hours of music, with more than 113 songs and commercials. Sam Houser had described the previous game's soundtrack as "clearly satirical and its own thing", and the team enjoyed the contrast of building one grounded in the 1980s. That meant curating a wide variety of songs from the decade, which required extensive research.

  Talk radio takes up about three times as much airtime as in Grand Theft Auto III. The developers pushed the callers' personalities to extremes, drawing on the experiences of producer and talk show host Lazlow Jones. Dan Houser felt the talk stations gave the world depth. Epic Records published the radio stations on seven albums, collectively titled Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Official Soundtrack Box Set, in October 2002, alongside the game itself.

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• 5. Building the Game

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  A core team of 50 people at Rockstar North led the eighteen-month development of Vice City. Full production began in late 2001, while Grand Theft Auto III was nearing completion. Early work involved only 3D models. Executive producer Sam Houser said the project "really kicked off at the beginning of 2002", and that phase lasted about nine months.

  After the Windows release of Grand Theft Auto III, the team discussed a mission pack with new weapons, vehicles and missions. Further discussion turned that idea into a stand-alone game. Rockstar announced it at the Electronic Entertainment Expo on the 22nd of May 2002. It became the most expensive game Rockstar North had made up to that point.

  Vice City consists of two main islands and several smaller areas, far larger than any world in earlier entries. The islands open up gradually as the story advances. Players guide Tommy on foot or by vehicle, completing missions, which are linear scenarios with set objectives. Several missions can be available at once, because some require the player to wait for further instructions or events.

  The weapons range from a Colt Python to an M60 machine gun and a minigun. The sniper rifle and rocket launcher allow first-person aiming, and a player can fire from a vehicle by facing sideways for a drive-by shooting. Weapons can be bought from dealers, found around the city, or taken from fallen enemies. Auto-aim assists in combat. Health pick-ups restore health fully, while body armour absorbs gunshots and explosions before wearing out.

  At six stars, the highest wanted level, police helicopters and the military swarm the player. A wanted meter on the screen tracks crimes with stars, and more stars bring a stronger response. When health runs out, the player respawns at the nearest hospital, losing all weapons and armour and some money. Missions for different gangs shape how the city reacts. Fellow gang members often defend Tommy, while rivals recognise him and shoot on sight.

  Outside the main story, Vice City offers four side activities: a vigilante minigame, a firefighting job, a paramedic service and a taxi service. Each grants context-specific rewards. Tommy can also buy properties around the city, and some serve as hideouts for weapons and vehicles. The businesses on offer include a taxi company, several entertainment clubs and a pornographic film studio. Each comes with missions, such as eliminating competition or stealing equipment. Once they are complete, the property starts paying ongoing income.

  On the 5th of September 2002, Rockstar announced that the planned release date of the 22nd of October would move to the 29th of October, to meet product demand. By the 15th of October, development had stopped and the game was submitted for manufacturing. It reached North American shops for the PlayStation 2 on the 29th of October, and European shops on the 8th of November. Capcom published it in Japan on the 20th of May 2004, for PlayStation 2 and Windows.

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• 6. Acclaim and Sales

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  Metacritic calculated an average of 95 out of 100 for Vice City, based on 62 reviews, a result it labels universal acclaim. That made it Metacritic's highest-rated PlayStation 2 game of 2002, and the fifth-highest overall, tied with several others. Reviewers praised the sound and music, the open-ended play and the open world, though some criticised the controls and technical problems. IGN's Douglass Perry called it "one of the most impressive games of 2002". GameSpy's Raymond Padilla described the experience as "deep, devilishly enjoyable, and unique".

  Reviewers generally rated the missions above those of Grand Theft Auto III, though some noted awkward moments and frustration. Perry wrote that they gave "a stronger feeling of being inside a story within a world that truly exists". Edge wrote that Tommy "sweats charisma" and commended Ray Liotta's performance. AllGame's Scott Alan Marriott found Tommy more engaging than Claude.

  Game Revolution's Ben Silverman wrote that the game's depth is "unparalleled", and many critics felt the world held more detail than its predecessors. Marriott called the audio an "unforgettable listening experience", and Perry called the music "the most impressive list of songs in a game". GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann described the cast as "colorful and memorable" and found the driving "more exciting and dangerous". Game Informer's Matt Helgeson wrote that "targeting is improved to the point where combat can actually be fun".

  Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell found it "maddening to see that character... models haven't been smartened up at all". Many reviewers also saw frame rate drops during demanding sequences. The artificial intelligence and long load times drew frequent criticism, and several noted awkward camera angles.

  At the 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Vice City earned six nominations and won Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year. It led the 1st British Academy Games Awards with eight nominations and six wins, including PlayStation 2 Game, PC Game, Action Game, Design and Sound. At the Golden Joystick Awards it was named Best PlayStation 2 game and won the prestigious Ultimate Game of the Year. GameSpot gave it Best Action/Adventure Game, Best Music, and Best Graphics in both technical and artistic categories. IGN named it Best Action/Adventure Game, and it was runner-up for Reader's Choice Overall Game of the Year.

  In the United States, Vice City was the highest-selling game of 2002. It reached 5.97 million units by 2004 and 8.20 million by December 2007. In July 2006, Next Generation ranked it as the highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, GameCube or Xbox since January 2000 in the United States, estimating 7 million copies. In February 2005 it joined PlayStation's Greatest Hits selection, a sign of strong sales. In Japan it sold about 223,000 copies in its first week and over 410,000 by January 2008. The United Kingdom gave it a Diamond award, which indicates over one million sales.

  Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack, a bundle of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, sold over 1.59 million copies in the United States and over 1.25 million in Japan. That made it one of the best-selling Xbox games. Vice City itself sold 14.2 million copies on the PlayStation 2, and across all platforms it had sold 17.5 million units by March 2008.

  Two more games followed: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2004, and a prequel, Vice City Stories, in 2006. Mike Snider of USA Today wrote that Vice City "raised the bar for video games", citing its interactivity, violence and soundtrack. Kotaku's Luke Plunkett and PC Magazine's Jeffrey L. Wilson both named it the best game in the series. Plunkett called it the "perfect Grand Theft Auto experience". Readers of Official UK PlayStation Magazine ranked it the fourth-greatest PlayStation title ever released. In 2006 it appeared on the Japanese magazine Famitsu's readers' list of top 100 games, as one of the only Western titles. Aaron Garbut felt that Vice City, with Grand Theft Auto III and San Andreas, led the trend toward open world games.

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• 7. Protests and Lawsuits

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  In November 2003, the Haitian Centers Council and Haitian Americans for Human Rights staged a protest in New York City against the game. They argued that it invited players to harm Haitian immigrants and portrayed Haitians as "thugs, thieves and drug dealers". Rockstar issued a press release apologising and acknowledging the concern. It insisted, however, that the violence be read in context, since the game also contains violence toward other ethnic groups. When New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg threatened distributor Take-Two Interactive with legal action, the company apologised and removed offensive statements from future copies.

  In January 2004, the majority Haitian-American council of North Miami filed an ordinance to ban selling or renting violent games to anyone under 18 without parental permission. The proposal, apparently sparked by Vice City, drew support from mayor Josaphat Celestin. He said, "We don't believe the First Amendment was written to protect those who want to incite violence". The case was later moved from federal court to state court.

  Peter Hartlaub of SFGate noted the game's "mindless violence" but attributed it to the developers' attempt at accuracy. Many advocacy groups labelled Vice City violent and explicit, as they had its predecessors. Jeremy Pope, who worked on several Rockstar games including Vice City, vowed never to work on violent games again, citing how mainstream media portrayed them. In Australia, the game was edited in advance to earn an MA15+ classification. An uncensored version arrived there in 2010 and kept the same classification.

  On the 7th of June 2003-18-year-old Devin Moore shot and killed two Alabama police officers and a dispatcher before fleeing in a patrol car. He was later apprehended. In statements to police, Moore reportedly said, "Life is like a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime". A $600 million lawsuit followed against Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment, GameStop and Wal-Mart. It claimed Moore frequently played Vice City and that the game led him to commit the crimes. Attorney Jack Thompson argued that the game's graphic nature caused the killings.

  Thompson removed himself from the case, Strickland v. Sony, in November 2005, after the judge scrutinised him for unprofessional conduct. In March 2006, the Supreme Court rejected the defendants' appeal to dismiss the case.

  In September 2006, Thompson brought another $600 million lawsuit, this time against Cody Posey, Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive and Sony Computer Entertainment. It claimed that 14-year-old Posey played the game obsessively before murdering his father, stepmother and stepsister on a ranch in Hondo, New Mexico. Posey's defence team argued that he had been abused by his father and was taking Sertraline at the time. The suit alleged the killings would not have happened without his obsessive play. The case was dismissed in December 2007, because New Mexico held no jurisdiction over Sony or Take-Two.

  In July 2017, the Psychic Readers Network sued Rockstar over the character Auntie Poulet. The suit alleged similarities between the character and Youree Harris, who voiced her. Lawyer Brandon J. Huffman of Odin Law and Media noted that the suit faced a timing problem. The Eleventh Circuit allows three years for copyright infringement claims, yet this suit was filed almost 15 years after the game's release. He added that Take-Two could claim parody or settle out of court, though he thought it unlikely to do either at first.

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• 8. Afterlives

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  The Windows version arrived on the 13th of May 2003 in North America and the 16th of May in Europe. It offered higher screen resolutions, a longer draw distance and more detailed textures. Metacritic gave it 94 out of 100 from 30 reviews, making it the highest-rated Windows game of 2003. Reviewers agreed on one improvement. GameSpy's Sal Accardo wrote, "there's simply no substitute for aiming with a mouse". Changes to the driving controls fared worse, and IGN's Steve Butts called them "crap". Eurogamer's Martin Taylor felt the higher resolutions "aren't kind to the overall visual quality".

  Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack reached the Xbox on the 4th of November 2003 in North America and the 2nd of January 2004 in Europe. That version added custom soundtrack support, improved audio, richer polygon models and better reflections than earlier ports. A larger bundle with San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, followed in October 2005 and reached OS X on the 12th of November 2010. Analysts believed a GameCube version would eventually appear, but it never did.

  For the game's tenth anniversary in 2012, War Drum Studios ported Vice City to mobile devices, building on the Windows version with enhanced visuals and a customisable layout. It reached iOS on the 6th of December and Android on the 12th of December, after a delay caused by technical issues. Fire OS followed on the 15th of May 2014. Metacritic scored the mobile version 80 out of 100 from 19 reviews, with praise for the visuals and criticism of the touchscreen controls. IGN's Justin Davis welcomed the customisable controls, saying they "make the experience much more controllable".

  An emulated version reached the PlayStation 3 on the 30th of January 2013 through the PS2 Classics line. Another arrived on the PlayStation 4 on the 5th of December 2015, upscaled to 1080p and with support for Trophies. The Rockstar Games Launcher added the game in September 2019. A remastered edition of The Trilogy, subtitled The Definitive Edition, was released on the 11th of November 2021 for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Android and iOS followed on the 14th of December 2023. The original was removed from digital retailers ahead of that release but later returned as a bundle on the Rockstar Store.

  In December 2020, a core team of six fans released an executable called reVC, after reverse-engineering the game since May. The project allowed unofficial ports to platforms such as the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita and Wii U. Take-Two issued a DMCA takedown in February 2021. A New Zealand-based developer named Theo, who maintained a fork of the source code, filed a counter-notice in April, claiming it held no original work owned by Take-Two. His content was restored after two weeks. The reVC team filed its own counter-notice on the 10th of June 2021, and the code was again restored after two weeks. In September 2021, Take-Two filed a lawsuit in California against the programmers, asserting copyright infringement.

  In January 2025, a team of Russian modders released an unofficial port called NextGen Edition, built on the engine of Grand Theft Auto IV. They aimed to address perceived problems with The Definitive Edition. A DMCA complaint from Take-Two led to the deletion of the mod's trailer and YouTube channel. Some journalists noted that a 2022 decree, protecting Russian companies from copyright enforcement by Western firms after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, might shield the team. Vice City's technical director, Obbe Vermeij, defended Take-Two's decision, opining that the mod "directly competes" with The Definitive Edition. He acknowledged the takedown "would be easier to swallow if Rockstar produced competent re-masters".

  A new rendition of Vice City is set to return in Grand Theft Auto VI in 2026.

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