Manta Ray

The Manta Ray is one of the few GTA VI sea creatures players have actually watched move. The scuba diving moment in An Extended Look, around the 17:09 mark, puts a diver in open water with rays, and preview coverage of the footage described a swimmer in a wetsuit gliding alongside manta rays over a noticeably more developed underwater environment than GTA V offered.

Game Informer’s Issue 382 feature backs the sighting up in print, listing rays among the sea life players meet while scuba diving and noting that every marine group has its own distinct movement. For a filter feeder that flies underwater rather than swims, movement is the whole identity, which makes the manta a natural poster species for the new diving systems.

Rays join dolphins, sharks and sea turtles in the small club of marine animals with both an on-screen appearance and an on-the-record confirmation.

Real manta rays visit Florida’s Atlantic coast seasonally, and juveniles use the shallows off southeast Florida as a nursery, so a Vice City diving encounter is true to life. The species is listed as endangered in the real world, which would make poaching one an on-brand way to attract Leonida’s wildlife agency.