Vice City

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an action-adventure game from Rockstar North, published by Rockstar Games and released for PlayStation 2 on 29 October 2002 in North America and 8 November 2002 in Europe. It is the follow-up to Grand Theft Auto III and is set in Vice City, a city based on Miami.

From a mission pack to a stand-alone game

Vice City began as a planned mission pack for the PC version of GTA III. The team expanded it until it became a stand-alone game. It was announced at E3 on 22 May 2002. Rockstar North's core team of about 50 people worked on it for roughly eighteen months, with a budget of 5 million US dollars.

Fifteen years inside, then Vice City

The game is set in 1986. The story follows mobster Tommy Vercetti, released after fifteen years in prison and sent to Vice City by Sonny Forelli. Sonny's drug deal is ambushed.

Unlike GTA III's silent Claude, Tommy talks. He is voiced by Ray Liotta. The supporting cast includes:

• Tom Sizemore
• William Fichtner
• Robert Davi
• Burt Reynolds
• Danny Dyer
• Luis Guzmán
• Fairuza Balk
• Philip Michael Thomas, who starred in Miami Vice

A fictional Miami, scouted on location

Vice City is a fictional city based heavily on Miami, Florida, set in 1986. It first appeared in the 1997 original game. The team made research trips to Miami, and Scarface, Carlito's Way and Miami Vice were major influences.

A bigger world you can buy into

The world is much larger than in earlier games. Players can buy properties and businesses, among them a taxi company and clubs, and once their missions are completed they bring in income.

Nine hours of 1980s music

Vice City has about 8,000 lines of dialogue and nine hours of music, with more than 113 songs and commercials. The soundtrack is licensed 1980s music, and Epic Records released it as a seven-album box set alongside the game.

95 on Metacritic, and the fastest seller of its day

Metacritic lists a Metascore of 95 from 62 critic reviews. At the first BAFTA Games Awards it won six awards, and it took Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards.

It sold 1.4 million copies in two days, the fastest-selling game in history at the time, and was the best-selling game of 2002 in the US. By March 2008 it had sold 17.5 million copies across all platforms, 14.2 million of them on PlayStation 2.

Haitian-American protests and a lawsuit-laden year

In 2003, Haitian-American groups protested over lines in the game. Rockstar apologised, and Take-Two removed the offending lines from later copies. The game was also named in lawsuits led by attorney Jack Thompson after a 2003 shooting in Alabama.

From Windows and Xbox to Mac, mobile and PS3

The Windows version arrived in May 2003. The Xbox version came on 4 November 2003 in a Double Pack with GTA III. A Mac release followed with the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy in November 2010, and a 10th Anniversary Edition for iOS and Android launched in December 2012. In January 2013 the PS2 game was re-released on PlayStation 3 through PSN.

Vice City is also part of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, The Definitive Edition, released on 11 November 2021 with enhanced visuals and gameplay.

The perfect GTA, according to Kotaku

Kotaku's Luke Plunkett called Vice City the perfect Grand Theft Auto experience. The prequel Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories followed in 2006, and a new rendition of Vice City is the setting of Grand Theft Auto VI.