GTA 6's Game Informer Cover Story: Hurricanes, 170+ Animals and a Map Rockstar Now Measures Itself

Game Informer issue 382 went live digitally on September 29, 2026, with Grand Theft Auto VI on the cover. The cover story runs 14 pages, is built on interviews with Rockstar developers and includes 12 new screenshots. Its focus is how Rockstar built Leonida and Vice City, not the plot. After days of complaints that it would sit behind a subscription, Game Informer made the story free to read in its app.

This article sorts the new information by how solid it is. Everything below comes either from Game Informer's own published exclusives or from at least two outlets reporting the same detail from the issue. Where the coverage disagrees or goes quiet, we say so.

The map size is now Rockstar's number, not ours

Rockstar North art director Aaron Garbut told Game Informer that Leonida is about twice the size of GTA 5's map, and Rockstar's biggest map by a clear margin. His emphasis was on density and hand-built detail rather than raw area, which fits what the Extended Look footage showed in August.

That changes how this site describes the map. Until today, our Everything We Know and map guide pages listed "roughly twice GTA 5" as an estimate from footage. It now comes from Rockstar, so we have moved it to confirmed. The figure of more than 700 enterable interiors has not changed status. It still comes from reporting, not from Rockstar.

The coverage also lists the same six regions this site already uses: Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga National Park. Nothing in the issue renames or adds a region.

What it means when you play: a map twice GTA 5's size makes travel time a real cost. Early on, pick a base in the region you play most and keep a suitable vehicle there, rather than driving across the state for every errand.

Weather is local, it lasts, and hurricanes are real

The biggest single topic in the issue is weather. Rockstar's vice president of art for lighting and rendering told Game Informer the team re-engineered the weather system so conditions are more localized and persistent. In practice, according to Game Informer's own write-up, you can stand in sunshine and watch a storm pour down somewhere else on the map. If you drive to that spot after the storm passes, the ground is still wet and the puddles are still there.

Storms are described as "heavy clouds, strong winds, dense atmospherics, and a lot of rain", with water running off roof edges and lampposts, thunder and lightning. Cloud cover moves across the whole map. A new wind system moves hair and debris on rooftops, puts ripples on water and bends swamp grass.

Tropical storms and hurricanes are confirmed. This is the second correction the issue forces on us: an older tip on this site filed hurricanes under rumors from leaks and trailer analysis. That tip has been rewritten.

What is not confirmed is just as important. Game Informer says it is still unclear how often the big storms happen and whether they affect missions or the story. Nobody has said whether police behave differently in a storm, whether traffic thins out, or whether a hurricane can be triggered on demand. Treat any video that tells you "use hurricanes to escape the cops" as guesswork.

What it means when you play: because weather is local, the conditions where you are may not match the sky across the bay. If you want rain for a photo or a quiet drive, you may be able to go and find it instead of waiting. Rockstar has not described how wet roads affect handling beyond what earlier previews said about grip, so drive storms carefully until you have felt it yourself.

More than 170 animal species, with rarity tiers

Game Informer's second exclusive covers wildlife. Leonida has more than 170 animal species across land, air and sea, including more than 60 kinds of birds and more than 30 land mammals, plus reptiles and fish.

The list mirrors real Florida. Native animals named include flamingos, manatees, pelicans and alligators. Rockstar also included invasive species that Florida is known for: green iguanas, cane toads, feral cats and rhesus macaque monkeys. Sea life in the coverage includes sharks, whales, rays, turtles and jellyfish.

Some animals can be tracked, and they are grouped as Rare, Discoverable and Legendary. Rockstar is keeping the identities of those animals secret. Game Informer also says the animal tech builds on Red Dead Redemption 2, with iridescence, bioluminescence, translucency, different feather types and improved fur.

Our reading: the Legendary label is a direct echo of Red Dead Redemption 2, where legendary animals were a separate hunt with their own rewards. Rockstar has not said what tracking does in GTA 6, what a Legendary find is worth, or whether it ties into hunting. Hunting and fishing were already officially listed for Mount Kalaga National Park. Connecting the two is a fair guess, not a fact.

What it means when you play: wildlife is content, not scenery. The swamps, reefs and national park are where rare sightings are most likely to be, and alligators in Grassrivers are a real hazard on foot.

The activity list

Several outlets reported the same list of activities from the issue: base jumping, billiards, gyms, kayaking, mini golf, scuba diving, street racing and off-road racing, trips to the zoo, airboating and jet skiing.

Some of these were already visible in trailers, such as airboats in the swamps and gym scenes. The value of the list is that it is now stated rather than inferred. It does not tell us how deep each activity is. Mini golf could be a full minigame or a short scene. Scuba diving fits the reefs and wrecks around the Keys, but the issue does not describe rewards for it. We will judge depth when the game is out.

What the cover story did not settle

Story length. Some write-ups today credited an "80-hour story" to Game Informer. That figure is older. It came from Rockstar North's Rob Nelson describing his own playthrough, including some optional content. It is one developer's run, not an official campaign length, and this site already treats it that way.

PC. None of the coverage we checked reports any PC news from the issue. Rockstar's announced launch platforms remain PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19, 2026. A few summaries online listed PC as a launch platform; that is an error, not an announcement.

Online, frame rate and first-person. The coverage reports nothing new on the GTA Online successor, performance modes or a first-person camera. Our earlier notes on those still stand.

Storm gameplay and animal rewards. Both are confirmed to exist and both are unexplained, as covered above.

What we updated on this site

Map size now reads as Rockstar-confirmed on the Everything We Know page, the State of Leonida map guide, the Extended Look breakdown and the map fact card. The 700+ interiors figure is still marked as reported, not official.

The weather tip that called hurricanes a rumor has been rewritten to say they are confirmed, with frequency and gameplay effects still unknown. The wildlife tip now includes the 170+ species figure.

Launch is still November 19, 2026, with preload from November 12. Game Informer's physical issue reaches subscribers and stores over the coming weeks, but the digital version already contains the full story.