Trailer 2 spends real time on the islands south of Vice City. Bridges, dive bars, marinas, the road that leads nowhere but into the water - it's a visual shout-out so on the nose it could only be the Florida Keys. Only it's not a 1:1 replica.
This guide contains a side-by-side comparison: what closely matches up with the actual Keys, what's condensed for game pacing, and what appears to be Rockstar invention. We use this method of comparison across the Leonida silo - it generally gives readers a better idea than a literal real-world overlay.
What tracks closely with the real Keys
The geography. A long stretch of islands running south-west from a coastal city on the mainland, connected by bridges. The water is visibly darker on one side of the road than the other. That's the Keys. Trailer 2 doesn't really hide that arrangement - you can discern the Keys analogue within seconds of those particular shots.
The vocabulary transfers as well. Conch-style architecture, weather-beaten marinas, light traffic, dive-bar signs, painted buoys, fishing skiffs at the bulkhead. None of that is invented. All of it is part of the real Keys vernacular.
What is almost certainly compressed
The Florida Keys, in reality, stretch across 113 miles of bridges and small islands. Driving from end to end can take hours. Rockstar will obviously not be replicating that level of scale - they never do, and their open worlds are better for it. What we're likely getting is a stylised distillation of the Keys: enough of the chain to represent the Keys, but not so much that travelling it will be boring.
Compression also happens between islands. The actual Seven Mile Bridge really is seven miles long. In a game, a seven-mile bridge means an uninterrupted five-minute drive at highway speeds - the kind of stretch Rockstar cuts down to seconds, not minutes. Approach the Keys analogue expecting it to feel right, not to be literal.
What looks like invention
Some of the islands you can see in the trailers don't correspond to any particular real Key. That's okay. Rockstar's worlds have always contained made-up landmarks in addition to the real ones, and they tend to do it well. What we shouldn't do is try to pin every island from the trailer onto a real-world map and pretend it lines up perfectly. The reference is the Keys. The specific design is Rockstar's.
The above also applies to any particular named landmark that is brought up in community conversation. We handle named locations cautiously on the named-locations master list. If we have not seen a name used in official material, we hedge.
The bridge route is the headline feature
There are few single experiences on any GTA map as distinctive as the drive from Vice City out across those bridges into the Keys analogue. It will unquestionably be among the most screenshotted, livestreamed and clipped bits of the entire game. Trailer 2 already telegraphs this clearly. We will cover this route in detail in the Keys bridge route as soon as that page is built. For now, you can get up to speed on the broader picture via the Florida Keys map page, our working hub.
Bridges are another Rockstar trademark. Bridges in the original Vice City drew just as much attention, and GTA 5's Del Perro Pier and Vinewood Hills road network have attained comparable iconic status. The Keys bridge route looks destined to become this game's version of those.
What we don't know yet
The number of islands, the names of specific islands, whether the entire chain can be traversed from start to finish at launch, and specifically how boats and jet-skis function mechanically around the islands. You can see boats and jet-skis in trailers. You don't see how they handle, what missions are found there, or if the islands even have fleshed-out side content. This segment of the map is one of the least talked about pre-launch, and we believe it will wow players on launch day.