Once upon a time, Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas featured fold-out posters in the box, with a map on one side and game art on the other. GTA 4 and 5 used double-sided maps, showing each game's locations at increasing levels of detail on each side. Rockstar is keeping the tradition alive with GTA 6, but as the studio moves to abandon physical media, you're gonna have to get it separately.
"On November 19 we will be adding an official printable Grand Theft Auto VI cover art poster and map of Leonida as a free digital download to the official site," Rockstar says in an announcement also offering GTA 6 pre-load details.
"A double-sided physical version of this poster will also be made available shortly after launch from the Rockstar Store – for $0.99 on its own or as a free gift with any purchase from the Rockstar Store."
I guess the promise of getting it as "a free gift" means Rockstar technically isn't charging extra for the map, but you'll still have to spend extra money on merch to get hold of it. It's not actually included with the game itself.
The "code-in-box" versions of GTA 6 will be available starting November 12, and Rockstar makes no mention of this map being available inside that package. If you really wanted to get the map for free with the game, you could wait until "shortly after launch" when it's available from the Rockstar Store, then buy the code-in-box version and get the map as a free gift then.
The catch is that Rockstar describes the code-in-box version as being available "while supplies last," so there's no guarantee it'll still be available past the pre-order window. Bummer.
I suppose I'm at least glad that Rockstar is paying tribute to the map pack-ins it used to include with its games, but the hoops we've now gotta go through to get these bonuses are a sad reminder of what we're losing while publishers attempt to usher in the death of physical media.
Check out the exclusive GTA 6 cover story from our friends at Edge.
