The Hotels of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

radit mahindro
7 min readDec 6, 2023

Welcome to the 1980s. From the decade of big hair, excess, and pastel suits comes a story of one man’s rise to the top of the criminal pile as Grand Theft Auto returns. Vice City is a huge urban sprawl ranging from the beach to the swamps and the glitz to the ghetto, and is the most varied, complete, and alive digital city ever created — Rockstar Games.

Rockstar Games, the creator of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video game franchise, released GTA Vice City in 2002. GTA Vice City propelled GTA into a cultural phenomenon thanks to its suave protagonist, Tommy Vercetti, a sophisticated storyline, and the setting: Vice City, based on real-life Miami in the late 1980s and largely inspired by the famed TV series Miami Vice.

The fictional Vice City is made memorable through its kaleidoscopic sunshine, radio stations and soundtracks, flashy cars, pastel fashion, swaying palms, and a dynamic open-world city to explore. The game starts with an intro that eventually leads Tommy Vercetti to his first stop point, where every player will receive their first mission: a hotel. In typical GTA games, many elements are based on real-life IPs and buildings. Here are some fictional / in-game hotels that are based on real-life hotels:

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