GTA 6 sets a new bar for video game graphics, but…

Rockstar and Netflix's Extended Look confirms GTA 6's November 19 release and shows ray-traced visuals running live on PS5. Resolution and frame rate remain unconfirmed.

Rockstar Games and Netflix premiered a 27 minute "Extended Look" at Grand Theft Auto 6 on August 27, several hours before the same trailer then dropped on YouTube. After years of delays and a pre-teaser spoiler leak days before, the trailer also provided absolutely cast-iron official confirmation that the game ships November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. This will be welcome news for the many people who have already placed pre-orders for the $80 title.

The footage, equal parts gameplay and cutscenes, was all captured in-game from bog-standard PS5 hardware and features no pre-rendered sequences. Which, for anyone that has been playing games for a while, is frankly incredible.

Reaction to the visuals has been off the scale. Independent technical analysis (Digital Foundry, via GTA Intel) has identified that the footage shows ray-traced global illumination, ray-traced reflections blended with screen-space techniques, and dynamic water simulation all running on retail PS5 hardware.

So, why the ‘but’ qualifier in the headline?

Some questions remain

First, the one thing not confirmed in the trailer is performance. Both resolutions and frame rate have yet to be confirmed, with the consensus being that the game will be a native 1440p release upscaled by the PS5 to run in 4K30. Certainly given the global constraints on storage at the moment, you can only imagine sales will be throttled if everyone needs to go out and buy new drives to host the game.

Will GTA 6 be able to achieve even that consistently throughout the title? That’s a question that really is going to have to wait until November 19, and we suspect that even reviews of pre-release versions will be locked up tight with NDAs until then. It’s possible the PS5 Pro will have a performance bump, but nothing has been announced as yet.

Avoiding the uncanny in Hyrule

The second point is perhaps a more personal one, and it’s one that keeps me playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom three and a half years after release while I’m happy to leave my daughter to RDR2.5. Basically I think that photorealism is a chimera not worth chasing. The closer you get, the further away it appears, and you end up falling headfirst into the Uncanny Valley.

There’s just always something about the way that the characters behave in the scenes that breaks the illusion, whether it’s looking at an object slightly wrong, a hesitation of movement, or something else. You just know you’re not watching humans. Once you aim for 100%, even a percentage point seems off. Watch any film or high-end TV show where an up-till-then 100% convincing CG character mounts and rides any creature, whether it be a horse or a dragon, and you’ll instantly see what I mean.

So, yes, there will no doubt be a version of GTA 6 in the house, but there will also be an incoming version of Nintendo’s The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. The worlds of Vice City and Hyrule are about as diametrically opposite as you can get and represent very different philosophies when it comes to game design and graphics, so it will be interesting to see which approach holds the attention the longest.