India, Oct. 6 -- Grand Theft Auto 6 may be a fictional crime story, but Rockstar Games did not build its Florida-inspired world entirely from imagination. Before turning Florida into Leonida, developers spent years travelling through the state, meeting people from very different backgrounds and recording details that could later appear in the game.

From Miami and the Florida Keys to the Everglades, police encounters and criminal communities, Rockstar's research went far beyond simply photographing locations.

Rockstar Games head of Development Aaron Garbut has now offered a closer look at that process in an interview with Love Magazine. His account suggests that the studio wanted to understand how Florida actually feels, including its co...