For most of the wait, writing about GTA 6 side activities meant writing about GTA 5's side activities and hoping. The Extended Look on August 27, 2026, plus the preview coverage that unlocked alongside it, replaced that guesswork with an actual list. It is not exhaustive, Rockstar showed a slice rather than a menu, but it is the first time we can name confirmed activities instead of extrapolating from Los Santos.
Here is what has been shown or stated, what it implies about how Leonida is structured, and what is still nowhere to be found.
The Confirmed List
Reported across previews and visible in the Extended Look itself:
Sport and games
- Pool. A returning GTA staple.
- Mini golf. New to the series and about as Florida as a mechanic can get.
- Basketball. Shown in gameplay, and reportedly tied into character stats.
Water
- Kayaking.
- Scuba diving. Building on the underwater exploration groundwork we covered in swimming and diving.
- Fan boats, the flat bottomed airboats built for the shallow water and sawgrass of the Grassrivers region. We looked at these in detail in airboats and swamp transport.
- Simply jumping into the sea, which sounds trivial until you remember how few open worlds let you enter water without a loading transition.
Vehicles and racing
- Street racing and dirt bike racing.
- Track races on dedicated circuits.
- Car meets, the social gathering format rather than a timed event.
Air
- Base jumping. Lucia base jumps from a skyscraper in the Extended Look itself.
Leisure and exploration
- A visitable zoo, where players can reportedly study and learn about animals rather than just look at them.
- Working out, which feeds the confirmed muscle and weight systems.
The Zoo Is the Tell
Of everything on that list, the zoo is the entry worth stopping on. A zoo you can walk into is a large, expensive, entirely optional interior with no crime attached to it. Reports that you can learn about the animals there suggest an interaction system rather than set dressing.
That fits a pattern running through everything Rockstar said during preview week. The Extended Look spent a meaningful share of its runtime on Jason watching television, Lucia bringing home clothes, and the pair simply existing. Rob Nelson, Rockstar North's co studio head, has talked about players who want to get up, shower, get dressed and go out for some exercise. A zoo is that philosophy in building form.
It also connects to the animals and wildlife systems Rockstar built for Red Dead Redemption 2 and has clearly carried forward. Studying creatures in a compendium was an RDR2 mechanic. A zoo is the urban version of the same idea.
What the List Says About Map Design
Look at where these activities live geographically and a structure appears.
| Activity | Likely region |
|---|---|
| Fan boats, kayaking | Grassrivers wetlands |
| Scuba diving, sea swimming | Leonida Keys, coastline |
| Base jumping | Vice City high rises |
| Mini golf, pool, zoo | Vice City and suburbs |
| Dirt bike racing | Mount Kalaga, inland terrain |
| Track races, car meets | Highways and industrial areas |
Almost nothing on the confirmed list works everywhere. Each activity is anchored to a terrain type, which means the side content is doing double duty as a reason to visit specific regions. That is a meaningful design difference from GTA 5, where most minigames clustered around Los Santos and Blaine County served mostly as a place to drive through. Given Rockstar's reported figure that Vice City's metro area is around eleven times larger than Los Santos', spreading activities by biome is the only way the outer regions earn their place. Our regions guide breaks down each area.
What Is Still Missing
Be careful about assuming the classics carry over. Rockstar has confirmed none of the following for GTA 6:
- Golf (full course, as opposed to mini golf)
- Tennis
- Yoga
- Darts or arm wrestling
- Hunting
- Triathlons
- Any form of gambling or casino play
- Property or business ownership as an activity system
Every one of those appeared in GTA 5 or GTA Online. None has been shown. Absence from a 26 minute video is not evidence of absence from a 100 hour game, but it is also not confirmation, and a lot of "confirmed activities" lists circulating this week quietly blur that line. Our older open world activities piece covers the full wishlist and clearly separates it from what is real.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there golf in GTA 6?
Mini golf has been confirmed. Traditional golf, which was a full minigame in GTA 5, has not been shown or announced.
Can you actually go inside the zoo in GTA 6?
Yes, per preview reporting the zoo is a visitable location and players can study the animals there. Rockstar has not detailed the mechanic beyond that.
Do side activities affect Jason and Lucia's stats?
Working out visibly builds muscle and food affects weight, both confirmed. Basketball has been reported as tied to stat progression. Whether other activities feed stats has not been stated.
Are there casinos in GTA 6?
Nothing has been confirmed. Gambling is a persistent fan expectation given the setting, but it did not appear in the Extended Look and Rockstar has said nothing about it.
The Bottom Line
For the first time we can list GTA 6 side activities rather than predict them: pool, mini golf, basketball, kayaking, scuba diving, fan boats, base jumping, three flavours of racing, car meets and a zoo. What connects them is not variety for its own sake. Each one is bolted to a specific part of Leonida, which is how a map this size avoids becoming scenery you drive past on the way to a mission marker.