Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19, and the GTA community is already doing what it does best: skipping ahead. Before Rockstar Games has even put the Vice City sun in players' hands, Reddit threads are filling up with pitches for where GTA 7 should land. Chicago, London, Hong Kong, Texas, Hawaii, and a fictional St Denis are all getting serious consideration.
The case for Chicago (and why it keeps coming up)
The most popular suggestion doing the rounds right now is a fictional take on Chicago. The reasoning is hard to argue with. The city carries nearly a century of organized crime mythology, a distinct architectural identity, and a geographic diversity that would translate well into GTA's sandbox design. "Chicago was practically made to be the setting for a GTA game," one Reddit user put it. "It's almost absurd Rockstar hasn't done it yet."
Here's the thing: GTA has always thrived on cities with a specific cultural gravity. Liberty City worked because New York is New York. Los Santos worked because LA's sprawl and excess are practically a GTA game already. Vice City works because Miami's neon-soaked crime history is baked into pop culture. Chicago fits that same mold.
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Detroit also came up in the same thread, all cities with the kind of gritty, layered histories that Rockstar tends to mine for tone and satire.
The international wildcard picks
Not every fan is keeping it stateside. London is a recurring suggestion, which makes sense given the series' history. The very first GTA featured a London expansion back in 1999, making it the only time the franchise has stepped outside the US. Nearly three decades on, a modern London entry would be a genuinely different design challenge for Rockstar: a major city with strict gun laws, a completely different car culture, and a political climate ripe for the kind of satire the studio excels at.
Hong Kong, Paris, and Mexico also came up, though some fans are firm that GTA needs to stay on American soil to maintain its identity as a piece of American cultural commentary.
Hawaii got a surprising amount of support. "Cool vibes, and it's already on an island," as one user put it. The isolation of an island setting would force Rockstar to rethink how the open world functions, which could either be a fascinating design constraint or a limiting one depending on execution.
The Red Dead connection and North Yankton
A few fans floated the idea of a Texas and Mexico setting, drawing on the border-crossing crime drama that No Country for Old Men territory suggests. What makes this interesting is the existing lore thread: Red Dead Redemption 2's fictional city of St Denis sits in Louisiana-inspired country, and there are already fan theories connecting Jason Duval's bloodline back to Arthur Morgan. A modern-day Western straddling Texas and Mexico would be a tonal leap from GTA 6's Bonnie and Clyde energy, but not an implausible one.
North Yankton is another option with built-in story potential. GTA 5's prologue dropped players into a Fargo-esque frozen wasteland for one of the series' most memorable sequences, then never returned. Building an entire game around that setting and tone would be a bold departure.
What most players miss about this conversation
The GTA cycle is getting longer, not shorter. GTA 5 launched in 2013. GTA 6 arrives in late 2026. That's a 13-year gap. If the pattern holds, GTA 7 is realistically a 2035 or later proposition. The fans debating settings today are, in a very real sense, planning a decade ahead.
That said, the conversation itself is worth paying attention to. Community setting preferences have historically aligned with what Rockstar eventually delivers, not because the studio takes Reddit polls as design briefs, but because both are reading the same cultural currents. The appetite for something genuinely new, not a fourth visit to Liberty City, comes through clearly in these threads.
For now, the focus belongs on GTA 6. If you're still getting up to speed on what's confirmed, the GTA 6 editions and pre-order bonuses guide breaks down everything in the Standard and Ultimate packages. And for a full rundown of what's been confirmed for the game so far, the Grand Theft Auto 6 guide collection has you covered ahead of the November launch.
