Leonida

The state the game is set in, by Rockstar's own word: its site for the game puts the story in a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida. The three plates on this page carry a line of capitals along the top band, where a US state name goes, and on all three it is too small for this site to read.

How we know

From Rockstar, not from the pictures. The name, and the six places under it, are on Rockstar’s own site for the game, read on 25 September 2026. Until that day this page also took the plates as a second source, and said the state name was on every one of them and read in full on one. Measured with the line of letters level, it clears this site’s floor on none, so the plates on this page show what a plate here looks like, not what it says.

The numbers were read character by character on the 3840 by 2160 originals. The car plate reads whole. The motorcycle plates took three passes: on 20 September the flamingo was seen printed over a character, on 21 September that was turned round on the strength of the second plate, and on 25 September the spacing of the characters and the two different shapes under the bird turned it back. The character under the flamingo is not read on either plate, because the bird covers too much of it.

Source: Rockstar Games, rockstargames.com/VI, Only in Leonida, retrieved 25 September 2026.

What the plates show

Leonida is Rockstar’s word, not a reading of ours. The official site for the game puts Jason and Lucia in a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida, and it introduces the places it has shown under the heading Only in Leonida: Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, which it calls the untamable jewel of Leonida’s crown, Port Gellhorn, Leonida’s forgotten coast, Ambrosia, the heart of Leonida, and Mount Kalaga, up against the state’s northern border.

The first plate on this page is from the Extended Look at 15:49. It is white with dark characters, B1M and 9Q4, and between them, in a wide gap, an orange with a short stem and two dark green leaves, one reaching over the M and one towards the 9. A yellow tab sits in the top right corner, and two slots are cut into the top edge.

The other two are on motorcycles in Rockstar’s first still of Ambrosia, and they are a different design. Each carries seven characters at an even spacing, with a pink flamingo printed over the fourth: a small head on a curved neck, a body, and one long leg that runs down past the foot of the line. Under the bird a dark character shows through, and not the same one on both plates. On the first it is a straight stem with a right-hand side, on the second a stem with a bar across the top and another at half height. So the flamingo covers a character rather than standing between two groups, and the plates read D15, a covered character and 8A1, and N54, a covered character and PC4. Each has a small tab in both top corners.

Until 25 September 2026 this page called the flamingo the state’s separator, standing between two groups of three, on the strength of the second plate, where there seemed to be white plate either side of it. On the original the characters on both plates run at the same spacing with no gap for a separator, and the shapes under the bird differ from one plate to the other, which a part of the flamingo would not.

All three plates also carry a line of capitals along the top band, where a US state name sits, and the two motorcycle plates a second line along the bottom band between two dots. On all three the letters of both lines stay under the height this site reads at, so neither line is given here. The same goes for the top band of the race car’s plate, which this site gave as read until 25 September 2026.

Where the word does come apart it is not on a plate: LEONIDA MARINE CENTER runs across the back of a mint T-shirt in Trailer 2, and Jason’s vest in his own press still carries the name, the L behind the steering wheel and his arm.

How to recognise it

• B1M and 9Q4 on a white car plate, an orange with two dark green leaves between them
• A yellow tab in the top right corner of the car plate, two slots in its top edge
• Seven evenly spaced characters on each motorcycle plate, a pink flamingo printed over the fourth
• A dark character under the flamingo, a different one on each motorcycle plate
• A line of capitals along the top band of all three plates, too small to read

The frame it comes from

The frame is a still from the official Press pack, which carries no timecode. It is 3840 by 2160, and the subject occupies 192 by 140 of it. Also in it: the Diversity'n'Treats billboard, the Ambrosia County Sheriff's Office sign, Ambrosia, and a red and black cruiser.

How this was measured

These figures come from the dataset, not from the prose above. We measure everything and claim what counts. How we work

What we still do not know

• Where the state’s borders run. Rockstar’s site puts Mount Kalaga up against the northern one.
• What the top and bottom bands of these plates say
• Which characters the flamingo covers on the two motorcycle plates
• Whether the flamingo and the orange mark two plate series, or one design for motorcycles and one for cars
• How Gloriana, whose name does read on a plate, sits beside Leonida
• Whether Leonida has counties beyond the three we have names for: Vice-Dale, Ambrosia and Kelly