GTA 6 cover art rebuilds the Vice City grid, panel by panel

Rockstar Games published the official Grand Theft Auto VI cover art on June 18, 2026, in a 33-second video posted to its YouTube channel. The image is a collage of nine panels on deep violet, with the logo dropped in the middle in a pink and blue gradient.

The template is 24 years old. The cover of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, released on October 29, 2002 for PlayStation 2, set the grid GTA 6 replays box for box. IGN went through the nine panels of the new one on June 19, 2026.

On the 2002 Vice City cover	What GTA 6 puts in the same place
A helicopter	A Sea Sparrow, the amphibious aircraft introduced in Vice City, minigun mounted on the cockpit steps
A motorcycle	A Principe Alvino V1, a new model, here in pink and purple
A woman in a bikini	An unnamed woman in a turquoise Vice City Manatees swimsuit, a Thaw can, “305” on her wrist
A yellow Infernus, bottom left	A yellow supercar with scissor doors, most likely a Pegassi, in the same corner
A boat seen from above	A Clarion speedboat shot from overhead, a flamingo passing over it
Nothing equivalent	An alligator filling a whole panel, a first for the series

The helicopter has appeared on every GTA cover since GTA 3. The motorcycle comes from a screenshot published alongside trailer 2 in May 2025, where the Principe Alvino V1 was green.

No animal had ever taken a full panel on a cover in this series. The alligator stands in for the Grassrivers, the wetland Rockstar describes as “the untameable jewel of Leonida’s crown”.

Two boxes owe nothing to 2002. Raul Bautista, a bank robber, stands outside the Sinfrontera National Bank holding an assault rifle branded Duke, a manufacturer carried over from Red Dead Redemption, the first time a brand from that world has crossed into GTA’s HD era, the games from GTA IV onward. The last box goes to Boobie Ike, a music producer, a gold signet ring with a crowned lion on his finger.

The duo panel puts Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos in front of the silhouetted palms of the earlier artwork, Lucia holding a short-barrelled pistol close to the SNS Pistol Mk II.

Rockstar credits nobody for the illustration and has published no caption naming the vehicles and characters, not for this cover and not for the Vice City one in 2002. The reading above is IGN’s.