When Does the GTA 6 Map Open Up? What Edge Says About Heading North

How soon can you leave Vice City and explore the rest of Leonida in GTA 6? It is one of the most common questions in the final weeks before launch, and Edge magazine's GTA 6 cover feature gave the first real answer. According to the preview, the map opens up relatively early, and you can head north and explore without having to push through the story first.

Here is what Edge actually reported, what is still unclear, and how it compares with the way earlier Rockstar games locked their maps.

The short answer

• Leonida opens early: Edge's GTA 6 preview says the map opens up relatively early, letting you head north and explore without following the story.
• Expect an introduction first: coverage of the preview describes a short opening that introduces Jason, Lucia and the controls before free roaming. Rockstar has not said how long it lasts.
• No ten-hour Vice City lock: reports based on the feature say you should not be stuck around Vice City for the first ten hours if you want to go elsewhere.
• The story still paces itself: Edge describes "natural gating" between story missions, but that slows the plot, not your access to the map.
• Nothing here is final: this comes from a 90-minute demo played by Rockstar, not from a review copy.

Where the detail comes from

The source is Edge issue 430, a cover feature by Simon Parkin written after a visit to Rockstar North in Edinburgh. Studio co-head Rob Nelson played the current build for roughly an hour and a half while Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker explained what was on screen. GamesRadar+ published the feature online on 29 October 2026, and we summarised its other systems in our GTA 6 Edge preview breakdown.

The map-access point circulated widely in the days after the issue went on sale. The ResetEra thread that collected the print details summarised it as "Leonida's map opens up relatively early, allowing players to head north and explore without having to follow the story." Other outlets citing the same feature described a short introduction followed by the freedom to drive to the top of the map whenever you want.

One caution: the free online version of the feature that we read does not contain that exact sentence, so the precise wording comes from secondhand summaries of the print issue. The substance is consistent across every report, but treat the phrasing as a paraphrase rather than a Rockstar quote.

What "opens up early" probably means

Edge does not give a mission number or a playtime, and nobody outside Rockstar has played the opening. Based on what has been described, the most likely structure looks like this:

1. A guided opening. Like most open-world games, GTA 6 will almost certainly start with a few story missions that set up Jason and Lucia's relationship and teach driving, shooting and the phone.
2. Free roaming soon after. Once that is done, the roads north are open. Edge's wording suggests there is no invisible wall waiting for you on the highway out of Vice City.
3. Story content spread across the state. The plot still takes place across Leonida, so some locations will matter more once the story sends you there, but you can see them before that.

This matches what Rockstar has said about the size of the world. Edge reports the map is roughly twice the size of GTA 5's, and Rockstar says Leonida's total landmass, Vice City included, is nearly as large as the playable maps of GTA 4, GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 combined. Locking most of that away for hours would be an odd choice. We compare those figures in Is the GTA 6 map bigger than GTA 5 and RDR2?.

What is up north?

Rockstar's official GTA 6 website names six regions of Leonida: Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga National Park. Vice City and the Keys sit in the south, mirroring Miami and the Florida Keys, so heading north means leaving the city for the swamps, small towns and wilder country beyond it.

Rockstar has not published a labelled map, so the exact position of each region is still an estimate built from the official descriptions and their real Florida inspirations. Our guide to all 6 confirmed regions of Leonida goes through each one, and Beyond Vice City: every other region confirmed for GTA 6 covers what Rockstar has shown outside the city.

The Edge screenshots give a taste of it: a biker gang riding in formation through a small town, an outdoor race meet, a local gang hanging out in the sun. That is the kind of content waiting for anyone who leaves Vice City on day one.

Story pacing: "natural gating" is not a locked map

The one part of the feature that is quoted directly is about the story, not the map, and it is easy to mix the two up. Edge writes that in previous games, a player racing through the story would "complete a mission and almost immediately receive a notification calling them to the next job". GTA 6 still accommodates that player, but "there is some natural gating to introduce pauses and downtime between missions."

In practice, Jason and Lucia will sometimes need to raise money before the next job, for example by holding up a gas station or a jewellery store, or by stealing a car a fence wants through the Waink app. That gating slows how quickly the plot moves. It does not stop you from driving anywhere in the meantime, and the downtime is arguably designed to push you out into the map.

Edge also reports that the day-night cycle is much longer than in GTA 5, and that buses and trains run across the whole map. Both point the same way: a world meant to be lived in between missions. Our guide to public transport in GTA 6 explains what the trailers showed.

How earlier Rockstar games handled it

Opening Leonida early would break with a long Rockstar habit. Based on the earlier games:

• GTA Vice City (2002): the bridges to the mainland were closed by a storm warning at the start, and opened as the story moved on.
• GTA San Andreas (2004): Los Santos was the only open city at first. Crossing into locked areas early earned you a wanted level.
• GTA 4 (2008): the bridges out of Broker and Dukes were closed by a terror alert until early story missions were done.
• GTA 5 (2013): the closest precedent. After the opening missions, almost all of Los Santos and Blaine County was open, with North Yankton as the notable exception.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018): a long snowy prologue, then large parts of the map gated by the story, and New Austin kept out of reach until the epilogue.

If Edge's description holds, GTA 6 sits closest to GTA 5: a short, guided start, then the map is yours. The difference is scale and density. Garbut told Edge the game has "an order of magnitude more interiors" than its predecessors, and that even after years of exploring builds of the game, he still comes across locations he had not seen before.

What we still do not know

• How long the introduction lasts. No mission count or playtime has been given.
• Whether anything stays locked. Edge's wording covers heading north, not every corner of the map. Story-specific areas or interiors may only open when the plot gets there.
• Whether police or other systems discourage early trips. Nothing in the coverage suggests a San Andreas-style wanted level for leaving early, but that has not been ruled out either.
• How it plays at launch. A developer demo shows what Rockstar chose to show. Pacing can still change before 19 November.

We will update this article once the game is out and the opening hours can be checked directly.

When can you start exploring?

GTA 6 is due on 19 November 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. There is no single worldwide unlock: both stores list midnight in each store region's own time zone, so the exact moment depends on where your account is registered. Our GTA 6 release time guide has the time for your region.

Sources: Edge 430, "Grand Theft Auto VI exclusive" by Simon Parkin, published on GamesRadar+ on 29 October 2026; summaries of the print feature on ResetEra and TechWiser. Everything here comes from official Rockstar material and press previews, not leaks.