GTA VI's weather and wildlife: hurricanes, 170+ species, and what's still unknown

Florida's weather and wildlife are half its reputation. Rockstar has now said how much of both made it into Leonida, and it has been just as clear about what it isn't saying yet.

Verdict: Confirmed, Very High confidence. GTA VI has localized weather that leaves puddles behind, tropical storms and hurricanes, and more than 170 animal species, some of which can be tracked as Rare, Discoverable or Legendary. Not disclosed: how often storms hit, whether they do anything beyond how they look, and what tracking an animal leads to. Don't read hunting, flooding or hurricane missions into any of it.

All of this comes from Rockstar's developers, interviewed for Game Informer's GTA VI cover story published on 29 September 2026. Game Informer's two free articles state the core facts, and the outlets that read the full story fill in the developers' own words.

Does GTA VI have hurricanes?

Yes. Leonida gets tropical storms and hurricanes, as Florida does. Owen Shepherd, Rockstar's vice president of art for lighting and rendering, described one: heavy cloud, strong wind and dense air, with so much rain that "everything is dripping wet, water is gushing off roof edges and lampposts, thunder rumbles, and flashes of lightning light up the clouds dramatically."

That's what a hurricane looks like in the game. What it does is another matter. Game Informer says plainly that it doesn't know how often the big storms come or how they affect gameplay and the story.

How does GTA VI's weather work?

Locally. Rockstar says it rebuilt its weather system "to make everything much more localized and persistent". In practice:

• Storms happen somewhere, not everywhere. You can stand in sunshine and watch rain pour down on another part of the map.
• Rain leaves a trace. Drive to where the storm was and the puddles and wet surfaces are still there.
• Rainbows can follow a shower in the right light.
• Clouds move across the whole map, from what Shepherd called "the clear blue skies of a Miami winter" to towering afternoon thunderheads with lightning.
• Wind changes with the place and the hour: offshore breezes after sunset, updrafts over warm ground, and buildings that block or channel gusts. Wind ruffles hair and swirls debris on rooftops, ripples the water and bends the swamp grass.

Shepherd's Miami-winter line describes the range of skies, not a calendar. Rockstar hasn't said the game has seasons.

How many animals are in GTA VI?

More than 170 species, across land, air and sea, several of which have never appeared in a Rockstar game. That includes more than 60 types of bird and more than 30 land mammals, plus fish and reptiles.

Rockstar names Florida natives such as flamingos, manatees, pelicans and alligators, and the invasive species Florida is known for: green iguanas, cane toads, feral cats, armadillos and rhesus macaques. Michael Kane, Rockstar's vice president of dynamic art, adds several kinds of shark, whales, rays, turtles and jellyfish, each with its own way of moving.

The animals are built to look the part. Some are iridescent, bioluminescent or translucent, birds have distinct feather types, and fur is simulated: it gets wet, dirty, matted and clumped, and animals of one species vary in colour and coat.

Can you hunt animals in GTA VI?

Rockstar hasn't said. What it has confirmed is that you can track certain animals, which fall into three categories: Rare, Discoverable and Legendary. It is keeping secret which animals are in each, and nothing reported says what you do once you find one.

The tracking echoes Red Dead Redemption 2, where tracking went hand in hand with hunting. That makes hunting a reasonable guess, and only a guess. The same goes for animals attacking you: it doesn't appear in anything Rockstar told Game Informer about wildlife.

What hasn't Rockstar said about weather and wildlife?

Most of what would change how you play. None of the following is on the record:

• how often tropical storms and hurricanes hit
• whether storms damage anything, flood streets or close roads
• whether any mission or story moment is built around a hurricane
• whether the game has seasons
• whether animals can be hunted, or what tracking them earns you
• whether animals can attack the player
• which animals are Rare, Discoverable or Legendary

At least one online summary said the storms bring flooding. Nothing Game Informer published says that, and neither do the outlets that read the full story.

How much of Florida made it into GTA VI's Leonida?

A lot of what you'd see, and so far none of what you'd feel as a player. The sky, the storms, the puddles and the animals are confirmed in detail. Whether a hurricane is scenery or an event, and whether a Legendary alligator is something to photograph or something to hunt, is still Rockstar's to say.

What changes this: Rockstar describing what storms do to the game, or what tracking animals is for, in its own channels or another interview. Short of that, the released game on 19 November 2026 answers both.