A new revelation by Rockstar Games concerning Grand Theft Auto VI had audiences going crazy. The second trailer was captured entirely in-game through a PlayStation 5, weaving gameplay with cutscenes in perfect harmony. So you hear that properly-no CGI rendered by any means, just embarrassingly raw in-engine footage. And if this doesn’t exhilarate you about this game, well, I don’t know what will.
So much to make this big is that the visuals in the trailer can actually be fully generated on a PS5. No fluffy marketing jargon, no overpromising at best, just pure power of the PS5. Rockstar had at one time established the way before it; this is full-on confidence in their tech from them. Otherwise, barring pre-rendered cinematics, the game engine probably would have preferred them. So imagine a game that might have been birthed had the trailer itself been great.
Here comes the icing on an icing-top cake: a trailer half-made up of gameplay and half of cutscenes. This is a biggie in blurring the lines between scripted and player-controlled. Rockstar has been drifting toward immersive storytelling for a few years now, and this may be the next step. If cutscene-to-gameplay transitions are as smooth as these, we might be looking to bigger open-world experiences without jarring cuts and awkward loadings—pure excitement.
These bring up other concerns: If the game already sucks up the entire processing power of the PS5, then what about the other platforms? A trailer captured on a Sony console doesn’t actually make it exclusive, which sounds like a little wink in optimization. I reckon Rockstar is probably milking every last bit out of that console, so that could very well hint that Xbox Series X should be heartily featured. PC remains an endlessly distant hope after all this.
The trailer gave me goosebumps a thousand times over. Everything looked insane-from the lighting, to the detail, to the vastness. And if this is the same kind of quality we’re getting inside the game? GTA VI is going to set the bar of open-world games really high. For the first time, Rockstar seems to be very confident, presenting raw gameplay right at this moment instead of hiding behind CGI trailers.
Going back to the most important question in the world: When do we get it? Rockstar has remained tight-lipped on official release dates, but surely they can’t just be releasing for the fun of it. Rumors are circling on late 2024 or early 2025, but nothing is concrete. It’s going to be torture.
GTA VI is such a generation leap: read technology and ambition that makes you brave to even look at the making of. If you put this trailer into consideration, then that is it: next-generation gaming awaits us just around the corner. For now, would you excuse us while we go back to watching it on repeat until Rockstar puts out another one?
