The Launch Gallery: Vice City looks best at dusk

Rockstar's new Launch Gallery is full of faces, neon and weather, and I kept stopping on the quiet pictures.

By lamaseNov 05, 20266 min read

Jason and Lucia close together on a packed club dance floor, lit violet by laser beams — Image: Rockstar Games

Vice City, at the hour it looks best

Rockstar published 39 new screenshots on Newswire and the official site, calling the set the Launch Gallery, with the game now two weeks away. I opened it for a quick look and got stuck on one of the first pictures: the skyline across the bay on a clear day, yachts in the marina, a plane overhead.

I stayed longest on the dusk shots. Police cars on a bridge while a helicopter searchlight sweeps the water, a gas station canopy glowing over a Ricardo Tires sign, the city lights waiting behind it. That is the Vice City I always carried in my head: neon first, everything else second. The resort pool seen straight from above, with palm trees and a few gulls, is the quiet one I like best.

Vice City's skyline across the bay on a clear day, with yachts at a marina and a plane overhead — Image: Rockstar Games

Vice City at dusk from above: police cars on a bridge, a helicopter searchlight, a yacht and waterfront villas — Image: Rockstar Games

A gas station at dusk with a neon-lit canopy and a Ricardo Tires sign, the city lights behind it — Image: Rockstar Games

A resort pool from straight above, palm trees, sun loungers and white gulls — Image: Rockstar Games

Vice City's downtown towers lit up at night from above, a helicopter over them — Image: Rockstar Games

Lucia taking a selfie on the hood of a pink wrapped muscle car at a car meet by the water, palm trees and towers behind — Image: Rockstar Games

Neon, flying bills and a dive bar I'd walk into

The night pictures are where the city fills up with people. A packed club under green light and hanging plants, a DJ on stage, hands in the air. A backstage dressing room with bulb mirrors. A pole dancer under the neon Delights sign in Port Gellhorn. It looks loud, a little sleazy and very much alive, which is how I want Vice City.

My favourite is the least flashy one: The Rusty Anchor, with an older trio toasting at a table while people dance behind them. Nobody is posing for us there. Then there are the faces: tattooed guys in a concrete garage, a pit bull with a spiked collar, a man in a bucket hat covering his mouth while a street burns behind him. The picture doesn't say what he is looking at. I just want to meet these people.

A crowded club with hanging plants and green lights, a DJ on stage and hands in the air — Image: Rockstar Games

A pole dancer in front of a neon Delights cabaret sign in Port Gellhorn — Image: Rockstar Games

A smiling woman in a purple bikini and fishnet top lying among flying dollar bills — Image: Rockstar Games

Dancers getting ready in a backstage dressing room with bulb mirrors, a red-haired woman in fishnets leaning in — Image: Rockstar Games

A crowded dive bar, The Rusty Anchor: an older trio toasting at a table, people dancing behind them — Image: Rockstar Games

A man with a big gold medallion and a cup, flanked by two women in a red-lit club, bills in the air — Image: Rockstar Games

A tattooed man in a chair having his hair braided by a woman, a big man checking his phone and another woman behind them — Image: Rockstar Games

A man in white sunglasses and a gold chain beside a snarling pit bull with a spiked collar — Image: Rockstar Games

A gang of four with heavily tattooed faces and bodies in a concrete garage, a woman's hands on the seated leader's shoulders — Image: Rockstar Games

A man in a bucket hat with rings, covering his mouth with one hand, a burning street blurred behind him — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason and Lucia, always within reach of each other

Several pictures show the two of them together. Close together on a packed club dance floor, lit violet by laser beams. Masked with bandanas and armed in a store while everyone raises their hands. In a convertible at night. Lucia firing a rifle from the car while Jason drives, with police cars, an armored truck and a motorbike behind them.

The one I keep going back to is the calm one: the two of them on a truck under a big tree on a hill at sunset, deer nearby, the city hazy in the distance. After all that noise it feels like a breath. What passes between them, the picture leaves open, and I'd like to find out for myself.

Jason and Lucia, masked with bandanas and armed, robbing a store as staff and customers raise their hands — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason and Lucia sitting on a truck under a big tree on a hill at sunset, deer nearby and the city in the haze — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason in a Leonida tank top holding a pistol, leaning into a car window, Lucia walking up behind him in sunglasses — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason in a cap and sunglasses and Lucia in a pink top in a convertible at night, a gun in his hand — Image: Rockstar Games

Lucia firing a rifle from a convertible driven by Jason, police cars, an armored truck and a motorbike behind them — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason, sweating, bleeding, still driving

Jason gets the widest range here:

crouched on a sports bike with a police car on his tail
shirtless and sweating under a loaded barbell
firing a machine gun in a shower of sparks
bloodied at a gas pump at night next to a shot-up red car

It is a lot of Jason in a row, and the gym picture is the one that makes him feel like a person rather than a poster.

The shot of three helmeted riders on dirt bikes inside a mall, shoppers running, made me grin. It is the kind of mess I remember loving in the old games.

Jason in a camouflage vest crouched on a sports bike at speed, a police car behind him — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason with long hair aiming a revolver in a dim stairwell, a tattooed arm with a pistol in the foreground — Image: Rockstar Games

Three riders in helmets on dirt bikes inside a mall, one aiming a gun as shoppers run — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason from behind in a tank top facing a group of rough men around a pickup truck at sunset — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason shirtless, sweating under a loaded barbell in a gym — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason in a backward cap firing a machine gun in a shower of sparks — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason firing a rifle over a bullet-holed car, two helicopters overhead — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason driving at night, one hand on the wheel, a tattooed man in a tank top beside him — Image: Rockstar Games

Jason, bloodied, pumping gas at night beside a shot-up red car, police closing in and a helicopter overhead — Image: Rockstar Games

Lucia looks straight back at us

To my eye, Lucia has the best-lit pictures in the whole gallery. A pistol held behind a rain-streaked window in blue and violet light, silhouettes outside. Braided hair behind the wheel of a blue car. And the close-up where she aims right at the camera with the city blurred behind her.

She turns her back on a police officer in the last one, flashing lights all around, a pistol held to her chest. Four pictures, and she is the one I would follow out of the frame.

Lucia holding a pistol behind a rain-streaked window in blue and violet light, silhouettes outside — Image: Rockstar Games

Lucia with braided hair aiming a pistol from the driver's seat of a blue car, Jason beside her — Image: Rockstar Games

Lucia aiming a pistol straight at the camera, a close-up, the city in the background — Image: Rockstar Games

Lucia with a pistol at her chest, her back to a police officer and flashing lights at night — Image: Rockstar Games

Then the city lets go and the swamp takes over

Leonida is more than Vice City, and the last pictures say so: a diver in a reef in the Leonida Keys with a lionfish in front of the lens, a man with a snake around his shoulders at a Grassrivers campfire, an alligator on the table beside him. An alligator with a glowing red eye in a misty swamp, armed figures on an airboat under a crescent moon.

Screenshots say nothing about how any of this plays. What they do show is how far the reef, the campfire and the misty swamp sit from the neon, and I like that distance.

A diver swimming through a reef in the Leonida Keys, a lionfish and coral in the foreground, a boat's hull above — Image: Rockstar Games

A man with a snake around his shoulders and a knife at a Grassrivers campfire, an alligator on the table, a shack behind — Image: Rockstar Games

An alligator with a glowing red eye in a misty Grassrivers swamp at night, armed figures on an airboat under a crescent moon — Image: Rockstar Games

A bearded man in a pale jacket holding a pistol over the shoulder of a younger man in a patterned shirt in a car — Image: Rockstar Games

Sources

Rockstar Newswire

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The Launch Gallery: Vice City looks best at dusk

Vice City, at the hour it looks best

Neon, flying bills and a dive bar I'd walk into

Jason and Lucia, always within reach of each other

Jason, sweating, bleeding, still driving

Lucia looks straight back at us

Then the city lets go and the swamp takes over

Sources

The conversation. 0

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