Source: Rockstar Games
What this means
- Aerial research is how Leonida gets its flight-level geography right — the Everglades mangroves, stadiums and coastlines players will fly over.
- The cops-and-gang-members ride-alongs feed directly into the criminal-underworld authenticity of Jason and Lucia's story.
- Garbut speaking this openly to a magazine signals the final marketing phase: Rockstar is swapping secrecy for behind-the-scenes storytelling.
- Expect real research beats to resurface as in-game details — Rockstar says these trips "find their way into the game in surprising ways."
Key facts
- Who said it: Aaron Garbut, head of development at Rockstar Games
- Where: LOVE Magazine Issue 27 interview, on sale October 5, 2026
- What: Florida research trips — driving tours, ride-alongs with cops and gang members, and a helicopter day over the Everglades ending above a live Beyoncé concert
- Release: GTA 6 launches November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S
Rockstar Games head of development Aaron Garbut has revealed just how far the GTA 6 research team went to capture real Florida. In an interview in LOVE Magazine Issue 27 (on sale October 5), Garbut described days of driving trips — from Miami through the surrounding towns and down through the Florida Keys to Key West — with "a car full of friends, driving for days on end, talking about what we want to make and being immersed in the locations and our ideas."
The research went well beyond sightseeing. "We do go in-depth, we hang with locals and we hear lots of stories and learn as much as we can," Garbut said. "We travel around with cops and with gang members. Everyone is lovely. Some people are equally scary." The goal, he explained, was to "build a world that is believable and varied, with depth."
One of the most striking anecdotes is the helicopter day: Garbut and the game's art directors spent a day surveying Miami and the Everglades from the air — a low, fast pass over the mangrove inlets, then a hover above a stadium during a live Beyoncé concert. "I think we made the local news that day," Garbut joked.
What the team brought home was a portrait of extremes: "Miami itself is really those extremes — lovely people, incredible wealth, incredible poverty, excess, craziness, the hustle, and showing it all off. That's our research trips — experiencing those extremes so that we can bring them into our world." Rather than copying Florida directly, Rockstar pushed it further: a version that feels larger, louder and more grotesque than the real thing.
It's classic Rockstar method — for GTA: Vice City, the team flew to Miami after GTA III just to soak up the atmosphere. This time the helicopters were new. Grand Theft Auto VI launches November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Sources
- Epicflix — reporting Garbut's LOVE Magazine Issue 27 interview
- GamingBolt — the same Garbut interview, independently reported
Confirmed: direct on-the-record quotes from Rockstar head of development Aaron Garbut in LOVE Magazine Issue 27, cross-checked across multiple independent outlets reporting the same interview.
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