GTA 6's Giant Paris Billboard, and the Worldwide Campaign From Miami to Tokyo

Drive the Paris ring road past the Porte de Bagnolet and you can no longer miss it: since early October, a giant GTA 6 banner has been climbing the facade of one of the Mercuriales towers. It is the first major European stop of a marketing push that started in Florida, ran through New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, and has now reached the Stade de France. With the game due on November 19, 2026, here is what is confirmed, what is only reported, and what nobody has explained yet.

The essentials

• Where: the Ponant tower of the Mercuriales, in Bagnolet (Seine-Saint-Denis), at the Porte de Bagnolet, visible from the Paris ring road and the A3 motorway.
• When: installation began on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, and the covering was reported finished in late October.
• What: panels based on the official GTA 6 key art, with a large "19" at the base for the release date.
• The controversy: the weapons on the original artwork (a pistol and an assault rifle) have been removed from the Paris version. No official explanation has been given.
• The size: the "175 meters" figure shared on social media is the height of the tower with its antennas, not the banner.
• The cost: not disclosed, by Rockstar, the building's manager or the town.

A banner on the Mercuriales towers

The Mercuriales are two glass towers built in the 1970s at the eastern gate of Paris, nicknamed after the World Trade Center that inspired them, and named Levant and Ponant. Both are being converted: one into a hotel, the other into a student and young-worker residence, with delivery expected in 2027. Facades under renovation are often rented out for advertising, which is how a building next to one of the busiest stretches of road in France ended up carrying Vice City.

The first images appeared on October 6, when drivers stuck in traffic filmed rope access technicians hanging the first panels. A video posted on X passed 150,000 views within hours and was picked up by French gaming outlets, then by GTA Boom in English. By October 9, according to actu Paris, the banner covered about two-thirds of the facade.

The town hall of Bagnolet confirmed to actu Paris that the operation had been authorized, under the local advertising regulation shared by the Est Ensemble towns (adopted in June 2024), which treats building banners differently from ordinary billboards.

What the artwork shows

The banner reuses the panels of the official cover art rather than a new visual. Reports describe a helicopter at the top, Lucia in the center, a yellow car at the bottom, a large "19" at the base and the red age-rating square in the corner. Clubic reports that separate Jason and Lucia visuals were added later, before the covering was completed at the end of October.

How big is it really?

Rockstar Mag, which first reported the banner, estimated it at 175 meters, and the number traveled fast. It does not hold up. The Seine-Saint-Denis architectural inventory gives each tower a height of about 114 meters without antennas, and Vice Central notes that 175 meters matches the tower including its antennas. The banner covers part of one edge of the facade: several tens of meters, not the whole building. Its exact dimensions have not been published.

Where did the guns go?

This is the detail that made the Paris banner a story beyond its size. On the official cover art, Lucia holds a pistol and an assault rifle appears in a lower panel. On the Bagnolet banner, both are gone: Lucia's hand and weapon were cropped out, and the rifle was erased.

Neither Rockstar nor the town hall has commented. Two theories circulate, and neither is confirmed:

• Advertising rules. French outlets point to local advertising regulations and to the broader sensitivity of showing firearms on a public building next to a motorway.
• A request from the owners. The building is being turned into housing and a hotel, and the owners may have set conditions on what could be displayed.

Some outlets, including Clubic and jeuxvideo.com, report that the same edits were spotted on ads in Times Square. Other reports say the American murals keep their weapons. Until Rockstar says something, treat any explanation as speculation.

The worldwide campaign, city by city

Paris is one stop on a tour that has been building since September. Here is what has been reported so far.

Miami, the home of Vice City

Florida gets the heaviest treatment, which makes sense for a game set in a fictional version of it. The "Welcome to Vice City" sign on the roof of the Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat, cost $975,000 according to the figures reported by Clubic, and Forbes says it should stay up until at least April 2027. The city also authorized up to six banners downtown, priced at around $202,000 each, for up to $1.2 million in total.

Miami Beach followed with a narrower vote on branded beach furniture, a decision that caused a real row at city hall: we covered it in Miami Beach Approves a $3 Million GTA 6 Ad Campaign. And on launch eve, the Heat play the Milwaukee Bucks in Vice City-themed uniforms, as explained in our piece on A Night in Vice City on November 18.

New York and the 2013 corner

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Colossal Media confirmed it was hand-painting GTA 6 murals for Rockstar, on the same corner that carried a GTA V mural in 2013. It is a deliberate nod to how the last launch was sold: walls, not just screens.

Tokyo, through Sony

In Japan, the billboards come from Sony rather than Rockstar, as part of the "It Happens on PS5" campaign. That fits the console deal: Sony has handled a good part of the game's visibility, from the bundles to the limited-edition controllers.

The Stade de France

The latest French stop came on October 30, when the Stade de France posted a "Welcome to Vice City" video on social media and dressed in the game's colors. Whether more French cities follow is unknown: Lyon and Marseille have been mentioned by fans, with nothing to back it up.

How much is all this costing?

Nobody official has said. Rockstar and Take-Two do not publish marketing budgets. The only number in circulation comes from René Garcia, a Miami-Dade County commissioner, who said during a debate on the local contracts that the promotional budget was at least $150 million. He did not explain how he reached it, so it is an estimate, not a disclosure.

What Take-Two has said is more qualitative. In May, CEO Strauss Zelnick promised a very large campaign, while saying the company would buy less traditional TV advertising than it did for GTA V. The physical stunts fit that strategy: a banner on a tower over the ring road costs less than a prime-time slot and gets filmed and shared for free. The TV spot did eventually arrive, and we broke down what Rockstar cut from the launch trailer for it.

What it means for players

None of these ads changes anything in the game, but they do confirm the calendar. Every visual points to the same date, and the practical milestones for players are:

• November 12: digital preload opens. Our guide on the GTA 6 preload date explains how to install early.
• November 19: the game unlocks at midnight in your store's time zone, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Check what time GTA 6 unlocks where you live.

If you are passing the Porte de Bagnolet to see the banner, do it as a passenger or from the street. Stopping on the ring road or its slip roads to take a photo is dangerous and illegal.

Sources

• Vice Central - the Mercuriales towers, the 175 m figure
• GTA 6 France / actu Paris - the Ponant tower, the town hall's authorization
• GTA Boom - the campaign timeline from Tokyo to Paris
• Clubic - the Stade de France, the removed weapons, the Miami contracts and the $150 million estimate