With an unprecedented leak of the world’s most anticipated game, September 2022 might’ve been one of the worst periods in Rockstar’s history. It was a breach that cost millions of dollars and wasted thousands of human work hours. Worse, it triggered a special kind of mortification, when the public gets to judge an unfinished product that was never meant for their eyes.
And yet, for fans who have spent years tracing the contours of Grand Theft Auto 6’s map, the leak was a treasure trove of information. If anything, the rough edges of the unfinished build were the best possible thing that could have landed on the laps of these digital cartographers — short of being able to play the actual game.
Normally, Rockstar game mappers rely on screenshots and trailers to triangulate locations based on buildings and landmarks. The more angles available, the more precise fans can be about where something stands in relation to everything else. It’s a tried-and-true method that has allowed the community to successfully predict the maps of games like GTA V with shocking accuracy before the triple-A game actually hits shelves.
But prior to the leak, there was nothing to work with at all. A GTA 6 trailer wasn’t released until 2023, and the first set of official screenshots didn’t drop until 2025. The leak — which included partial level designs, animations, early gameplay ideas, and playable versions of protagonists Jason and Lucia — was the only tangible reference for mappers.
Getting everyone on the same page took some doing, though. In many internet forums, rules were enacted to prevent the dissemination of any media related to the leaks. Some of it was motivated out of respect for the developers, but on a more practical level, Rockstar proved adamant about issuing DMCA takedowns. For many smaller fan communities, it was easier and safer not to engage with the leaks.
“It took a long time for the community to accept it,” YouTuber and mapper Basement Gamer Bros said of the leaks in a 2024 video.
Eventually, the morality of it all became secondary to the benefits. There was critical information here, like coordinates that could help them plot everything on a grid. There were script names that matched the file names of coding in Red Dead Redemption 2, which helped mappers get a better sense of the game’s scale. As mappers rolled up their sleeves and got up to their elbows digging around the organs of GTA 6’s coding, they were exploring a game well before most people had learned anything concrete about it.
“I feel for Rockstar for having their hard work ruined by leaks, [but] we couldn’t as a mapping community ask for anything better to aid our efforts,” Basement Gamer said in the same video.
For mappers, unfinished work and glitches are not excuses to discredit Rockstar. In fact, footage of Lucia clipping through the rough early rendition of the game’s world became a golden jewel for mappers. The build displayed camera coordinates and values for field of vision, which allowed mappers to calibrate the camera used in the game. In turn, they could project stills from the glitch onto the in-progress map to check if their estimates matched the exact pixels of the image. Basically, the glitch allowed them to use the footage as if it were tracing paper.
If this sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. I’ve seen the greatest minds of my generation, and they like to draw lines on video game screenshots. While there are vibe-based mappers who use the art for pure wish fulfillment – everyone seems to want Orlando in the game, and they find ways to jam it into the map regardless of logic – there are also those who treat GTA 6 mapping like a science.
Three years after the initial leak, the map that the community deems most accurate is on its eighth version. Changes to the map can only happen after information is peer reviewed via Discord, and players come to a consensus about the inclusion. Updates are expected as new information is discovered. It’s almost like people in the community are more likely to respect mappers who prove they’re dedicated to getting it right, which requires iteration.
Herein lies the paradox. Mappers value accuracy above all else, and denigrate attempts to map GTA 6 where the designers do not show their work. But even the most “correct” map displays information that is speculative. In some cases, mappers are certain that they’ve figured out not just the location of a building, but also the shape of its interiors. In other cases, what’s on the map is an educated guess.
It could turn out to be wrong. The difference here is that die-hard mappers try to be as clear as possible about what they do and do not know. Anything speculative is also based on existing map information — we already know how Vice City is constructed thanks to older games — and real-world data, as GTA 6 appears to be loosely based on Florida.
That’s in contrast to mappers who throw whatever they want into Microsoft Paint and try to pass it off as a leak. They might come close; many mappers work off the same base. But you wouldn’t be able to tell at a glance that the cool-sounding location you’re looking at is purely made-up. In the case of YouTubers, who are starved for new information to blast on their channels, speculation is secondary to having new content.
Why go through all this trouble, though? What’s the point? The most obvious answer is that people like being right. If GTA 6’s release validates a player’s predictions, they’ll be treated like omniscient gods. And you can’t overlook the fact that mapping provides a concrete way for mega fans to pass the time. By the time GTA 6 comes out, it will have been in development for nearly a decade. Mapping is an excellent way to keep hype for the game alive.
“It’s just like putting a puzzle together,” Basement Gamer Bro said on his lengthy mapping video. “Our main goal is to get the map evolved as accurately as possible to match the final game, so that when it comes out we can say, Yes! We did it! We got it right!”
It might be tempting to discredit people who like to spend their time mapping out games that do not exist yet, and could further change during development. These are the sorts of GTA 6 fans who can look at a Rockstar trailer and point out dozens of mistakes the average person would never notice. But don’t get it twisted. Mappers are just like us. They touch grass. In fact, right now, one of the most prominent mappers hasn’t been able to update because he’s been too busy with real-world obligations, like vacations and weddings. Then again, some mappers get the same pleasure from their favorite hobby, too.
“Mapping GTA is like going on vacation somewhere beautiful and memorizing your favorite bits,” Basement Gamer Bros said in his YouTube video.
As some mappers take breaks, it’s given others the opportunity to lap up the competition and stake a claim for the title for most accurate mapper. As of right now, that distinction likely belongs to YANIS’ interactive V-Map, which anyone can play around with, much like Google Earth. Dozens of people have helped put together a map where every known building is flagged and cataloged, sometimes put side-to-side with photographs of their real-world counterparts. There’s even a toggle for getting rid of areas mapped based on leaks.
“I feel like Rockstar has this magic in their games that not many other developers can achieve and that is something to do with the attention to detail…” Basement Gamer Bros. said in his video explaining why people choose to map. “With GTA 6 and other Rockstar titles, you know you will get a world that will take you years to appreciate, to explore and to fully understand.”
Everyone wants to know what GTA 6 will look like. Mapping just goes one step further. Sure, there’s plenty that mappers could get wrong in the end. But at that point, the mistakes won’t carry any sting. Mappers are so far in it, they’re even looking forward to discovering what they got wrong.