Vice City beginner's guide: your first 10 hours in GTA VI
A spoiler-light playbook for your first day in Leonida — what to do, what to skip, and how to avoid burning out before the map opens up.
Welcome to Leonida
Vice City in GTA VI is the largest Rockstar map ever shipped — and the easiest one to faceplant in if you treat it like GTA V. The opening hours are paced more like Red Dead Redemption 2: deliberate, character-driven, and structured around Jason and Lucia getting their footing after the events of the opening heist.
Status: Demo content — built from Trailer 2 analysis and Rockstar's official "Welcome to Leonida" page. Update expected the week of launch.
1. Don't rush the first heist payoff
The opening sequence railroads you through the trailer's liquor-store robbery. Resist the urge to immediately blow the take on a sports car. Early Vice City is built around Jason's safehouse upgrades, and your money goes further on a stash apartment than a Pegassi.
2. Switch protagonists early and often
Lucia and Jason share an inventory of safehouses but not of relationships. Switching mid-mission rotates which NPCs greet you on the street — and which ones try to shoot you. Use the switch to scout missions from both angles before committing to a loud entry.
3. The map opens in waves
Based on Trailer 2's pacing and Rockstar's past first-act structure, expect three locked-then-unlocked regions in the opening 10 hours: downtown Vice City, the Keys, and the Everglades / Mount Kalaga area. The panhandle and Leonida Keys north stay locked until mid-game story beats. Don't waste fuel trying to bridge across early.
4. Use the cash businesses, not the heists, to bootstrap
The community read of the Trailer 2 strip-club scene plus Rockstar's pattern from GTA Online points to passive-income properties returning. Buy one early. The heist line is where the story money is — the property line is where the rent money is.
5. Save before every Brian Heder mission
Backwoods Leonida is where things go sideways fastest. Manual save before any mission flagged with the swamp icon — Rockstar has historically made these the highest checkpoint-respawn-pain missions of any chapter.
Everything here is editorial scaffolding written ahead of launch. We'll rewrite this guide in full from a real playthrough the week the embargo lifts. Bookmark and check back on November 19, 2026.