Rockstar’s GTA 6 Website Update Hid This Stunning Vice City Nighttime Clip

Fans waiting for a third Grand Theft Auto VI trailer will have to wait a while longer, but some perceptive treasure hunters found a few seconds of new game footage that had been quietly uploaded to the official website. We extracted two distinct high-resolution screenshots (embedded below), and have some thoughts about how the game will run on current-gen consoles.

Since the footage is only a few seconds long, doing a slow pan out from a night view of a Vice City bay, the two most vivid shots are taken from the end (above) and beginning (below) of the footage. The pan out crosses the bay onto the neighboring side of Vice City, but gives us the closest look yet at how buildings will appear at night within GTA VI. Modeled interiors are visibly present, which is new for GTA, and most of the scenery is employs ray-traced global illumination (RTGI).


With the footage running at a 4K, at 30 FPS, we can also assume that it is from one of the current consoles, save for the entry-level Xbox Series S. The PlayStation 5 may or may not run at this level of fidelity, so the most likely candidates for the hardware this footage is running on would be Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 Pro.


A closer look at the beginning of the footage seems to show the ray-tracing implementation does have some limits. If you focus on the water in the bay, you'll be able to tell that ray-traced reflections are being used here, but scrutiny reveals that there must be some distance limit at play. The giveaway is the Ferris wheel and its lack of a reflection in the water, despite being in such close proximity to it.

Ultimately, this is a minor detail. If Rockstar catches it, there's a fair chance that this single immersion-breaking detail could be fixed with further optimization efforts. We are still expecting a November 19th launch date, with Take-Two stating that the release is locked in. Pre-orders also start on June 26th. That means this footage is still early, and the final game could look even better.


While PC players and last-gen console players will need to keep themselves occupied with some other games releasing this year, this footage does provide a promising look at the current console build of GTA VI. Here's hoping a proper Trailer 3 isn't too be far behind.