GTA 6's Weather, Wildlife & Map Size, Explained

Game Informer's September 29 cover story was the single densest drop of new GTA 6 detail since the Extended Look — 14 pages built around exclusive interviews and screenshots, focused almost entirely on how Rockstar built Leonida as a place rather than a plot. Three numbers from it are worth knowing cold.

Weather that stays where it lands

The headline systems detail is weather that's localized and persistent rather than a single global state applied to the whole map. In practice that means you can be standing in direct sunshine while watching a rainstorm move across the horizon a few blocks away — and when you drive through a stretch of road that got rained on, the puddles are still there after the rain itself has moved on. Game Informer also confirmed tropical storms and hurricanes as part of the system, which tracks with everything Rockstar has signaled about Leonida's Florida identity: this isn't a reskinned day/night cycle, it's weather built to behave like Gulf Coast weather actually does.

170-plus species, not a cosmetic touch

The wildlife count is the kind of number that's easy to skim past, but it's a genuine step up in scope — previous GTA games populated their worlds with a handful of recurring animal types (dogs, birds, the occasional cougar in GTA V's countryside). A confirmed 170-plus species across land, air, and sea signals Rockstar treating Leonida's ecosystem as its own system worth building out in depth, not a backdrop detail. Expect everything from alligators and herons to open-water marine life, given the amount of coastline and swampland the setting already promises.

A map twice the size of GTA V's

Game Informer's size comparison — roughly double GTA V's map — is the most concrete scale figure Rockstar has put behind Leonida to date, and it lines up with earlier, vaguer "up to 70% larger" estimates that had been circulating since before the cover art reveal. Combined with the chapter-based story structure we've covered separately, a map this size suggests Rockstar is building room for the story to meaningfully open up new regions as Jason and Lucia's arc progresses, rather than handing players the entire map on day one the way GTA V largely did.

What we still don't know

• Whether weather and wildlife density vary meaningfully between Vice City proper and the rural stretches of Leonida, or stay consistent map-wide.
• Whether any wildlife is huntable or purely ambient/atmospheric.
• The exact square-mileage figure — "roughly double GTA V" is Game Informer's framing, not an official Rockstar number.

Treat the map-size comparison, the weather system's persistence, and the 170-plus species count as confirmed via Game Informer's reporting. Treat anything about how deep those systems actually run in gameplay as unconfirmed until hands-on previews start landing closer to launch.