Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Updated 28 October 2026 · Fan site. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a 2002 open-world crime game by Rockstar North, released for PlayStation 2 on 29 October 2002 in North America. It is set in 1986 in Vice City, a fictional version of Miami. Players control Tommy Vercetti, a mobster who builds a criminal empire after a drug deal goes wrong.

Who is the main character in GTA Vice City?

The hero is Tommy Vercetti, voiced by Ray Liotta. He has just finished fifteen years in prison for murder. His old boss, Sonny Forelli of Liberty City, sends him south to handle a drug deal. Unlike Claude in GTA III, Tommy talks, and much of the game's appeal comes from his short temper and sharp lines.

Story

The deal in Vice City is ambushed, and Tommy loses both the drugs and Sonny's money. Sonny wants it all back. Helped by the nervous lawyer Ken Rosenberg, Tommy works for local figures while he hunts for whoever set him up. He learns that drug lord Ricardo Diaz was behind the ambush, kills him and takes over his mansion.

From there Tommy builds his own empire through rackets and front businesses. Sonny eventually comes to collect a cut. Tommy refuses, and at a final meeting he kills Sonny and Lance Vance, who has secretly betrayed him.

How big is the Vice City map?

The city covers two main islands, plus smaller areas that open as the story moves on. Wikipedia estimates its area at more than 4.25 square kilometres, close to twice the size of GTA III's Liberty City. The setting leans on 1980s Miami: neon, beaches, pastel suits and the cocaine trade.

How does GTA Vice City play?

It builds on GTA III's 3D design. Motorbikes are new and fully drivable. Weapons range from bats and knives to rifles, the M60 and a minigun, with first-person aiming for sniper rifles and rocket launchers. The wanted level climbs to six stars, which brings out helicopters and the army.

The biggest addition is buying property. Tommy can buy businesses such as a taxi firm and a film studio. Each comes with its own missions, and once they are done the business pays out money over time. Classic side jobs return, including vigilante, firefighter, paramedic and taxi work.

Development and soundtrack

A core team of about 50 at Rockstar North built the game in roughly eighteen months. It began as an idea for a GTA III mission pack before growing into a full game. Rockstar announced it at E3 in May 2002. The development budget was about US$5 million. Writers drew on Scarface, Carlito's Way and Miami Vice. The city itself first appeared, in top-down form, in the original Grand Theft Auto.

The script has about 8,000 lines of dialogue, four times as many as GTA III. The radio holds about nine hours of music and over 113 songs and ads, mostly real 1980s pop, rock, new wave and hip-hop. Epic Records released the stations as a seven-album box set in October 2002.

Release, reception and sales

The PS2 version scored 95 out of 100 on Metacritic and the PC version 94. Reviewers praised the music, story, voice acting and open world. They criticised the controls, frame-rate drops, AI and load times. It won Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year at the Interactive Achievement Awards and several BAFTA awards.

It sold more than 500,000 copies in its first 24 hours and about 1.4 million in two days. It was the best-selling game of 2002 in the US. Wikipedia reports about 17.5 million copies sold across all platforms by March 2008, about 14.2 million of them on PS2.

Controversy and legacy

In November 2003 Haitian community groups protested in New York over content they found offensive to Haitians. Rockstar apologised, and Take-Two removed the offending lines from later copies. The game was also named in lawsuits linked to real-world killings in the US.

Kotaku and PC Magazine have both called it the best game in the series. A prequel, Vice City Stories, followed in 2006. A 2021 remaster in The Definitive Edition was poorly received at launch. A new, modern Vice City is the main city of GTA VI, due on 19 November 2026. See our GTA 6 Vice City guide for what Rockstar has shown so far.