GTA 6's LOVE Magazine Cover Story: Lucia's Hometown, Raul's Role and How Rockstar Built Leonida

Rockstar is promoting LOVE's GTA 6 cover story. The new details: Lucia's Liberty City roots, Raul as mentor, Florida research trips and 8-week milestones.

By CyberGrokr News Desk · Published Oct 10, 2026

On Friday, October 9, Rockstar pointed fans to LOVE magazine's Grand Theft Auto VI cover story. The interview from Issue 27, by LOVE's Kacion Mayers, is now free to read on LOVE's website and is also in stores. The cover features Rockstar artwork of Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos.

The August 27 Extended Look was all about showing the game. This piece has Rockstar explaining it. Six members of the team are interviewed: Rockstar North co-studio heads Rob Nelson and Aaron Garbut, narrative SVP Rupert Humphries, art VP Michael Kane, and writers Elizabeth Gauvey-Kern and Alexa D'Agostino. Here are the most useful new details.

Lucia's hometown is Liberty City

D'Agostino says she based parts of Lucia on her own mother, who grew up in Newark, New Jersey, "close to Lucia's hometown of Liberty City." So the game's lead comes from the series' version of New York, not Leonida. D'Agostino says the goal was a woman who can stand next to Arthur Morgan and Niko Bellic. Gauvey-Kern credits the actress who plays Lucia with shaping the character, though she doesn't name her.

Raul is the mentor

Humphries describes the story as a Bonnie and Clyde-style tale about young people who aren't yet hardened. Raul's job is to be "an older mentor character" who brings them into big heists. According to Humphries, Raul has the local criminal knowledge Jason and Lucia lack when they reach Vice City.

Jason's choices are partly yours

On Jason's history of drug trafficking and bank robbery, Humphries says the team didn't set out to make a statement. Much of it is "up to the player to decide," he says: whether Jason does these things out of necessity, or because he's simply wired that way.

How Rockstar built it

• Research trips. Garbut describes driving from Miami through the Florida Keys to Key West, riding along with police and with gang members, and filming from a helicopter. That helicopter shoot ended with the crew hovering over a Beyoncé concert.
• Eight-week milestones. Nelson says the game came together through repeated eight-week milestones, each one reviewed and followed by notes that set the next goal.
• Background dialogue. A dedicated team in Los Angeles writes pedestrian dialogue, while advertising and comedy writers in New York, LA and London handle other content.
• Politics. Humphries says Rockstar avoids targeting specific real people or movements. Instead, politics shows up through election signs, campaign robocalls, radio ads and political talk shows.

What it doesn't change

The interview has no new gameplay footage, no new features and no changes to the release date. GTA VI still launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, 40 days from today.

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