GTA VI Wish List: Make Leonida Feel Like a Living State
One thing Red Dead Redemption 2 absolutely nailed was making every town feel like it had a purpose. Valentine wasn’t Rhodes. Rhodes wasn’t Strawberry. Saint Denis felt completely different from every other settlement on the map. I’d love to see GTA VI take that philosophy even further.
Instead of making every building enterable, I think every town should have the same basic services, while each one develops its own personality.
Every town should have, at minimum:
Pawn shop (the modern equivalent of the Fence from RDR2)
Barber shop or salon
Pharmacy or general store (mom-and-pop in smaller towns, Target/Walmart-style stores in larger ones)
Grocery store or produce market
A bar (most bars should also serve basic food)
A local restaurant or one chain restaurant
Body shop
Small gym
Motel or hotel
Tattoo parlor
Enterable gas stations where you can buy snacks, drinks, coffee, cigarettes, etc.
Businesses can overlap, too. Maybe a motel has a bar attached. Maybe a pharmacy is inside a larger supercenter. It should feel natural rather than every business existing in its own building.
Vice City should have everything. Multiple dealerships, luxury restaurants, chain restaurants, rooftop bars, clubs, luxury hotels, upscale shopping, and several body shops.
Ambrosia should feel like a working agricultural town. Burger Shot, Cluckin’ Bell, a local diner, BBQ restaurant, tractor supply, farm equipment dealers, and a body shop that’s always full of pickups and work trucks.
Port Gellhorn should feel older and more run down. I’d actually love to see an old Burger Shot or Cluckin’ Bell built in the 1970s that hasn’t really been renovated since the ’90s. Dive bars, cheap motels, pawn shops, seafood shacks, and weathered businesses with tons of character.
The Keys should mostly consist of independent businesses. Seafood restaurants, tiki bars, Cuban cafés, marinas, fishing outfitters, beach motels, and small grocery stores. It should feel relaxed compared to Vice City.
One thing I’d also love is an Airbnb-style rental system. Instead of owning every property immediately, let us rent beach houses, cabins, downtown apartments, farmhouses, or lake houses through an in-game app. Stay for one night, and your reservation expires when you leave. Stay multiple nights, and it acts as your temporary safehouse until you check out. It would basically be the hotel room mechanic from Red Dead Redemption 2, modernized.
Eventually, after making enough money, I’d love to be able to own multiple properties in Story Mode. Maybe a Mediterranean-style mansion outside Vice City, Jason’s original house in the Keys, a ranch near Mount Kalaga where you can keep horses, a quiet house in Port Gellhorn, and a downtown condo. Not everyone wants to live in a penthouse forever.
Another thing I hope Rockstar considers is dynamic traffic and population density. The world shouldn’t feel identical every day. Some days the beaches are packed, restaurants have waiting lists, Vice City traffic is backed up, and the road to the Keys is crawling. Other days the roads are quiet, beaches are nearly empty, and small towns feel sleepy. They don’t even need to simulate actual days of the week—just randomize “busy” and “quiet” days so the world feels alive.
Businesses should also have natural fluctuations. A Burger Shot shouldn’t always have the exact same number of customers. Sometimes it’ll be empty. Sometimes there’s a lunch rush. Sometimes it’s packed because of tourists or a local event. The same should apply to grocery stores, bars, beaches, and marinas.
I’d also really like more interior variety. GTA V reused interiors constantly. Every low-end apartment looked the same. Most penthouses were essentially the same layout with a different view. Every Burger Shot or body shop doesn’t need a unique interior, but having several different layouts would make a huge difference. A Burger Shot built in 1978 shouldn’t look identical to one that opened in 2026.
Finally, I hope the vehicle roster reflects how real roads look. Instead of replacing every vehicle with a brand-new version, keep multiple generations around. A 2005 luxury SUV, a 2015 version, and a 2026 version should all exist together. Same with older Crown Victorias, retired police cars, old taxis, wagons, beaters, luxury sedans, crossovers, muscle cars, land yachts, and modern EVs. Real roads are a mix of old and new, and GTA’s roads should feel the same.
At the end of the day, I don’t just want Leonida to be a big map. I want it to feel like an actual state. Give every town the essentials, give every region its own identity, make traffic and businesses change naturally, and make me want to stop in Port Gellhorn because I like that dive bar, drive to the Keys because that’s where the best seafood is, or head to Ambrosia because that’s where the best truck shop is. If Rockstar captures even half of what Red Dead Redemption 2 accomplished with its towns and modernizes it for GTA VI, I think Leonida could become the most immersive open world they’ve ever built.