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In 26 minutes, Rockstar quietly justified Grand Theft Auto 6‘s 13-year development timeline. The game’s visuals achieve a level of visual fidelity where the transition between cutscene and playable game is sometimes barely perceptible.
Rob Nelson, Rockstar North studio co‑head, told the New York Times that the aim was to make the most immersive, seamless game possible. The studio wanted to “get rid of the fades to black between gameplay and cutscene.” This also explains the game’s minimal and contextual user interface, which makes the game feel like more of an interactive movie.
Some will rightly point out that the jump between Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA 6 was not nearly as distinctive as what we saw between Grand Theft Auto 4 and 5. The games also “only” run at 30 frames per second on consoles. Still, there were several moments in the Extended Look that genuinely impressed — and most of them were small. Here are some of the standouts.
Jason’s shirt (and GTA 6’s clothes in general)
The Netflix reveal was full of head-turning looks, like when Lucia exited a getaway car in a thong and baddie shirt that would make Bayonetta proud. Yet even as bullets were flying, the moments that commanded my attention the most were unassuming. Who knew that watching a white cotton T-shirt bunch and drape could be this mesmerizing? The clothing physics in the game are so outstanding that I found myself admiring even basic denim jeans and black shirts.
GTA 6’s environmental destruction
Old heads might remember something called Wall Gate, or when the GTA fandom lifted its pitchforks over environmental destruction. A trailer for GTA 5 featured a moment when a truck crashed into a concrete barrier, and the wall exploded into pieces. Folks got excited: finally, some real environmental destruction in GTA! Except GTA 5 did not ship with any such feature.
The dream remained dead for the last 13 years, until now. Early on in the Extended Look, a fight caught viewers by surprise after two men burst through a wall mid-brawl. There are many details like this throughout the trailer, from bottles that clink into each other to bits of gravel and dust left in the wake of a high-speed police chase. They were all impressive, but the initial wow moment definitely belonged to that first destroyed wall.
Jason and Lucia’s hair
I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time looking at body and facial hair as I did during the Netflix Extended Look. You can practically feel the gruffness of Jason’s beard. The individual strands of hair on his arms and legs catch the light just so. Don’t even get me started on Lucia’s baby hair. I’m sure there are people out there who are better equipped than I am to speak about how well GTA 6 captures the texture of Black hair, but the level of care put into the tresses and locks on the whole is evident to anyone who watches the footage.
The sweat
This is technically a returning feature from Red Dead Redemption 2, but it is much easier to appreciate the glistening of bodies in a hot Miami nightclub than it is to get hyped about the realistic way your steed sweats and drools. There’s also been a massive technical leap. Where in RDR2 sweat could make your character look like a wet piece of rubber, in GTA 6 it looks like condensation on actual human skin. Sweat is also a significantly more important detail in a game that takes place in Florida, a subtropical place that is notorious for its humidity.
The animations
The GIF speaks for itself!
GTA 6’s water
Here, Rockstar deviates from realism — Floridian bayous typically aren’t a turquoise paradise of pristine clear water. I actually want to explore Rockstar’s theme park version of the Everglades, though, which probably wouldn’t have been true if the studio depicted a murky brown swamp.
GTA 6’s animals
GTA 6 seems to take another page from RDR2 by providing entire ecosystems of animals. During the trailer, we caught glimpses of seagulls, dolphins, gators, turtles, flamingos, eels, sharks, iguanas and many other animals. Presumably, you’ll be able to hunt some of these creatures — which could potentially mean the addition of a fishing mini-game. The animals are so lovingly rendered, though, that I’d feel guilty killing them. That’s fine: if GTA 6 evolves RDR2‘s formula, then you can probably approach some areas as if they were a wildlife documentary.
The reflections
Fun fact: Rockstar implemented some spiffy ray tracing tech for its reflections, according to Digital Foundry. The reflections change dynamically while the player is in motion versus when the camera is at rest. You can read a detailed technical breakdown of that tech here. Alternatively, you can simply admire the way Lucia’s aviators capture objects that aren’t fully in view.
Some people out there are still debating whether GTA 6 saw a downgrade between the version we saw in the initial trailers and the footage depicted in the Netflix special. And sure, comparing screenshots makes it undeniable that Rockstar toned down or adjusted the lighting on some of the game’s graphics, which aren’t quite as advanced as in the initial trailers. Still, it’s almost unbelievable to know everything in the latest trailer was captured on actual PS5 hardware.
