Every Shop, Brand And Outfit In GTA 6 Has A Job To Do

GTA has always run on parody brands. Cluckin Bell, Ammu-Nation, Sprunk. In GTA 6, Rockstar says it is doing something heavier than a punchline.

Brands with a purpose

Stu Petri, vice president of 2D and UI design, has overseen much of the world-building in GTA 6, including the products, shops, brands and campaigns that sit just to the left of their real counterparts. The stated goal is a vibrant, believable culture, which means every brand, from a fashion label to a car company, has to feel like more than a one-off gag.

Petri told Dazed those brands reflect the aspirations, aesthetics and lifestyles of the people who live in the spaces of the world. In practice that means a haircut or an outfit is not a cosmetic slider. It says something about who you are playing Jason and Lucia as.

Rockstar hired a Miami stylist

Jillian Carr, a Miami-based stylist, has worked with Rockstar since 2023 designing an in-game fashion ecosystem meant to capture the nuances of taste, lifestyle, affluence and individuality across the city and across America more broadly.

Her read on the place is short and sharp. "Vice City is built around vanity," Carr said, pointing to social media, celebrity culture and a constant flow of tourists as the reason appearances carry so much weight there and trend cycles turn over so fast.

The crowd got an upgrade

The most visible result is the NPCs. Rockstar says the virtual population is far more varied than in previous games: young and old, tall and short, tattooed, pierced or surgically modified, dressed in throwback Hawaiian shirts, sharp suits, luxury fashion or muddy combat gear.

Crucially the crowds are tailored to where they are. What you see in Vice City Little Cuba is not what you see out in the wilderness of Mount Kalaga national park. Jamie-Lee Lloyd said the team built new tools and pipelines to make that possible, and that authenticity comes from how a character looks, moves, interacts and expresses themselves rather than appearance alone.

The phones are part of it

Rockstar has also confirmed working in-game social media feeds, which is where a lot of this world-building will actually land. Brands, characters and careers can play out on Jason and Lucia phones while you drive, which is a neat way to keep a satirical setting alive without stopping the game to make the joke.

The long game

GTA V hipsters and tech bros aged into a 2010s time capsule. Rockstar knows GTA 6 will be looked at the same way in another thirteen years, and the team is openly conscious of the line between specific and reductive. The bet is that a brand built as a functioning part of a culture ages better than a brand built as a joke.

Source: Dazed autumn 2026 issue, published 26 August 2026, featuring interviews with Stu Petri, Jillian Carr and Jamie-Lee Lloyd at Rockstar Games.