Leonida Keys in GTA 6: the Florida Keys-inspired islands explained

The Leonida Keys are the chain of low, sun-bleached islands strung out below Vice City, and they are where GTA 6 actually starts for one of its two protagonists. Rockstar's site calls the region the "Gateway to Paradise" and sums it up as a place where the dress code is casual and the bars are loaded: not flashy, but easy, and sitting right on the doorstep of some of the most beautiful and most dangerous water in America¹.

What the official site says

The Keys entry on rockstargames.com/VI is short and deliberately laid-back. Life in the archipelago is described as unpretentious, the sort of place where you get your buzz on and pull up a deck chair, with the sting in the tail being the water itself¹. Rockstar's own screenshot captions for the region are more revealing than the copy: an iguana ambling in front of a mobility scooter, a seaplane crossing open water with a road bridge linking two islands behind it, a beach bar with someone passed out at a picnic table, scuba divers among coral, eels and a sea turtle, and a raft-up of boats with people tanning and jet skiing¹.

Two of the game's named characters are anchored here. Jason Duval's official bio has him landing in the Keys after leaving the Army and working for local drug runners, and Brian Heder is described as a smuggler from the golden age who still moves product through his boat yard and lets Jason live rent-free at one of his properties¹.

What the trailers show

Trailer 2 opens on Jason on the roof of a shabby beach property joking about fixing leaks, then follows him inland to collect Lucia from prison. PC Gamer read that opening stretch as Jason living in Brian's property and doing favours instead of paying rent, which places the game's first hours in the Keys⁴⁵. Community trackers also place Jason and Lucia's starting apartment in the Keys based on that trailer⁶.

What there is to do

GamesRadar's location round-up singles out the Keys as the most touristy corner of Leonida, with waterside bars and beach shops alongside higher-end pastimes like scuba diving and yachting, and names The Rusty Anchor as one of the dive bars². It also flags the reef life just off shore, including giant turtles, and warns that the same water hides predators². PC Gamer noted a shark circling partygoers in one of Rockstar's own Keys screenshots³. The Extended Look leaned further into this, showing a heavily populated ocean and plenty of diving and jet ski footage⁷.

The real Florida Keys

The inspiration is not subtle: the Keys sit south of Miami and the Everglades in real life, and outlets covering the map read the Vice City skyline visible in the background of Rockstar's Keys screenshots the same way³. Community mapping projects go further and match individual islands to real ones, but that work leans on leaked material and is not confirmed⁶.

What is still unknown

Rockstar has not said how many islands there are, how far the chain runs, or how the Keys connect to the mainland beyond the single bridge visible in one screenshot¹. No official map has been published³.

Real-world inspiration in detail

Miami New Times went further than a general Florida Keys comparison and matched a specific piece of infrastructure: an aerial trailer shot of a long low bridge crossing open water lines up with the Seven Mile Bridge, which in reality connects the middle and lower Florida Keys and is one of the longest bridges in the United States⁸. That is the same building-by-building method the paper used on Ocean Drive, and it is the strongest single piece of evidence that Rockstar modelled the Keys' road connections on the real Overseas Highway rather than inventing a generic island chain⁸³. Community mapping goes further still, naming individual islands such as Key Lento as a stand-in for Key Largo, though that identification leans on unofficial and partly leaked material and should be read as a working theory rather than a fact⁶.

Gameplay hints from the Keys

Rockstar's own screenshot captions point toward specific activities rather than just scenery. One shows Jason holding a fishing rod on a boat while Cal looks through binoculars, another shows Jason paddling a Crest Kayak shirtless, and a third shows scuba divers working through coral, fish, an eel and a sea turtle¹. Cal Hampton, described on the same page as Jason's friend who "feels safest hanging at home, snooping on Coast Guard comms with a few beers and some private browser tabs open," gives the region a surveillance angle to go with the leisure one: someone in Jason's circle is already listening to the water traffic¹. None of fishing, diving or kayaking has been confirmed as a full mechanic, but all three appear as named, captioned activities rather than incidental background¹.

Businesses and characters based here

Two named locations anchor the Keys for the player: Brian Heder's boat yard, where Jason lives rent-free in exchange for shakedowns, and The Rusty Anchor, the dive bar named in GamesRadar's location coverage¹². Both fit the picture Rockstar paints of a region running on easy money and easier living, with a smuggling economy just under the surface of the tourist one¹.

Community theories

Beyond the Key Largo comparison, community trackers place a settlement called Capri deeper in the chain, reading it as a stand-in for the inland town of Sebring, and file the whole archipelago under a fictional county matched to Monroe County, Florida, home of the real Keys⁶. That mapping work draws partly on leaked development material rather than anything Rockstar has published, so it belongs in the same bracket as most fan cartography: a reasonable guess built from real Florida geography, not a confirmed layout⁶.