I’ve been half dreading today since the first GTA 6 teaser landed back in December 2023, mostly because thirteen years of built up expectation is an awful lot for any twenty six minutes of footage to live up to. Rockstar’s Extended Look, which premiered on Netflix this afternoon before making its way to YouTube, mostly cleared that bar. The ambition on show here isn’t just about how the game looks, it’s about how gameplay and cutscenes are being stitched together almost seamlessly during the dramatic beats. Potentially a new level of immersion if it lands the way it appear it will.
That said, it didn’t answer the one question that’s been rattling around this game for over a year.
What was in the GTA VI Extended Look
The Extended Look wasn’t what I expected. It ran to twenty six minutes with no narration over the top, just gameplay stitched into segments, and it doubled as Rockstar’s own confirmation that 19 November is locked in, with the date apparently not having slipped at all. Worth noting too that this was seemingly captured on a regular PS5, not the Pro, which tells you plenty about the console’s legs still having a bit of fight left.
Jason and Lucia get the full spectrum treatment. There’s a proper car chase with the cops shaken off down an alley, a trap house job done for nightclub owner Boobie Ike, gas station robberies, and a quieter domestic scene with Lucia and Jason. Stealing a car isn’t just a button press either, there’s an actual slim jim animation involved, and I like that being gamified a little rather than handed to you for free. Interactions go deep in general. You’re handed a cigar at one point and you control when Jason actually tokes it, which is the kind of granular detail that suggests the whole world has been built to reward poking at it. Nearly everything on screen seems interactive, and every attempt to interact seems to pay off in some way.
There’s a rectangular, wide format minimap this time round, and a relationship mechanic between Jason and Lucia that shows up as mood emojis and a small heart when they’re getting on. That’s a genuinely interesting hint that there might be a deeper, almost Sims style maintenance layer to keeping the two of them on good terms, though Rockstar hasn’t spelled out how far that goes. Transport options look properly varied too. Electric scooters are in, obviously the crime vehicle of choice as per Ireland, the gym is back for building up your character physically, and there’s kayaking among what looks like a huge spread of ways to get around. Between that and the side activities on show, this looks like a game with genuinely hours of side quest material in it. The map itself, even from this one preview, looks massive.
The immersive parts that will convert most doubters
The world looks absolutely incredible. That’s not hyperbole, it’s just where the lighting and environmental work have landed. Jason and Lucia have chemistry to beat the band, the small character animation, him checking the fridge and reacting to her outfit, sells the relationship better than any cutscene could. The ragdoll physics on death are fantastic too, properly weighty rather than the usual video game floppiness.
You can tell this is taking cues from film as much as from other games. Messages between the two leads appear oversized on screen the way they would in a movie, and between that and the cutscene blending mentioned above, GTA 6 is shaping up to be as much a playable movie as it is a piece of game design. Phil Collins is on the soundtrack as well, which pleases me greatly.
Not everything is a straightforward win. There’s a kill cam on headshots now, which I don’t remember the series doing before, and while it’s a satisfying bit of spectacle, it also pulls you straight back out of the world for a second and reminds you you’re playing a game rather than living in one. Jason’s voice acting leaves a little to be desired too, which is worth saying plainly given how strong the chemistry between the two leads is everywhere else. It’s a small mark against an otherwise very accomplished showing. I want to say it won’t be a deal-breaker but after the incredible performances of GTA V’s three stars, 50% being carried could lose the game some marks.
The frame rate and platform question
Rockstar still hasn’t confirmed a performance target for base PS5 or Xbox Series X|S. A former Rockstar technical director’s recent comments on the trade offs involved suggest thirty frames a second with everything turned up is the more realistic outcome on current hardware, with sixty only rumoured so far and only on PS5 Pro. None of that is confirmed by Rockstar itself, so treat it as informed speculation rather than fact for now.
It does leave me thinking about hardware more than I expected to. The graphics are glorious enough that a PS5 Pro is genuinely tempting, though realistically I know I’ll end up getting this on PC too, since that’s where I’ve got the most power available. Whether a save will carry across between the two is something I’d love an answer on before launch. Maybe I’d have considered a PS5 Pro more until that screen at the end stating it was captured on PS5 (regular I assume).
The Goosed verdict
Today did what it needed to do. The visuals, the character work and the sheer depth of interaction earn the hype that’s been building since 2023, and neither the frame rate uncertainty nor Jason’s voice acting is enough to talk anyone out of a pre-order. My honest advice once this lands is to skip the trailers that I had to watch to bring you this. Just wait, and play.
