Leonida in GTA VI will open up to players relatively early in the game. After completing the opening storyline that introduces characters and mechanics, players are free to act and explore, with their routes not entirely restricted by main missions.
This design is closer to the approach in GTA V, where players can freely explore after completing the tutorial, rather than in GTA IV, where police roadblocks seal off areas and require players to advance the main story to gradually unlock Liberty City. Players can then head to places like the northern part of the map on their own, without being stuck in Vice City for the first ten hours.
Main missions will still take players to many locations across the map, but they won't be the only way to explore each area. The article also compares this aspect to the story-gated regions in Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Aaron Garbut, co-head of studio at Rockstar North, stated that even while working on the game, he still discovers locations in Leonida he hadn't seen before. He partly attributes this experience to the density of the game world, noting that the number of interior spaces in this title is "an order of magnitude" higher than in other Rockstar games, with these areas crafted by hand in high detail. GTA VI will launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19.