Fourteen minutes into the GTA 6 extended look, Jason is hanging out the back of a getaway car with an automatic rifle, doing his best to keep cop cars and a whirlybird at bay. Blink and you’ll miss the actual news sitting in the corner of the screen: six Wanted stars.
That’s a bigger deal than it sounds. GTA 5 capped its Wanted system at five, which made the Los Santos game the odd one out in the GTA pantheon, since every other 3D entry added a sixth star (in GTA 4’s case, signaling the SWAT-like NOOSE forces).
Netflix had the 26-minute extended look to itself for all of six hours before the thing hit YouTube and other platforms, ahead of the November 19 release date the game is currently carrying. It’s the deepest glimpse yet at Vice City and the bayous and forests of Leonida, and there’s a lot buried in it.
Rockstar North has clearly been busy. Since Grand Theft Auto 6 could take you more than 80 hours to finish, new mechanics were always coming, and the trailer quietly shows off reworked gunplay, deeper carjacking, a respect-style system and a pile of refreshed minigames.
Yes, you can switch between Lucia and Jason
Much like large chunks of GTA 5, you can swap between Rockstar’s Bonnie and Clyde on the fly. Watch the 18:41 mark, where the action jumps from Jason to Lucia while both leads try to manage the chaos of a chase sequence from their red convertible.
Some missions look like they’ll lock you into one character, either by making you pick or by taking the decision out of your hands in a cutscene. At 10:50, Lucia and Jason are offered a job by their criminal chum Brian Heder over drinks at a glitzy rooftop bar called the Effluvia in downtown Vice City. The two briefly discuss who’s taking it before Lucia stands up and leaves Jason with the gig and his Pißwasser (that’s GTA’s trademark lager, in case you’d forgotten).
The Criminal Profile system is the part nobody’s confirmed in detail
The beefier Wanted level comes attached to a new Criminal Profile system, laid out in a preview writeup rather than a full Rockstar breakdown, so treat the specifics as unconfirmed. It apparently works a bit like Red Dead Redemption 2’s Honor system, though it promises to be more nuanced. Per that preview, GTA 6 doesn’t view all crimes as equal: firing back at an angry NPC who started it won’t be judged as harshly as an unhinged killing spree.
You’ll also get the chance to walk away from potentially violent encounters, deescalating through onscreen dialogue options that let you taunt or talk nice (another RDR2 throwback). Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson said in that same preview that “consistent actions may have an impact in terms of how the world reacts to you and how the narrative plays out.” Apparently throwing trash in a garbage can or feeding one of Leonida’s many critters can nudge Lucia or Jason’s Criminal Profile in the right direction.
Gunplay changes you can only spot by squinting
Rockstar has been tight-lipped about what it’s done to GTA’s shooting and melee systems, so everything here is fan observation from footage, not an official spec sheet. The clearest tweak: you can finally swap between two firearms without opening a weapon wheel. Lucia does it at 18:31 on an outdoor target range, moving between a high-powered rifle and her pistol without breaking stride.
Guns also appear easier and quicker to pick up. Jason smoothly grabs an enemy’s Duke 556 assault rifle during a hectic office firefight late in the trailer, and aiming looks smoother across the board. How much of that is the studio running auto-aim during the recorded gameplay footage is impossible to tell from the outside.
One more: certain weapons can seemingly be wielded one-handed. At 09:21, Lucia is wasting fools with a shotgun in one hand while the other hauls a big bag of cash, weapons or narcotics.
The side activities are going to eat your weekends
Grand Theft Auto has always been serious about open-world time-wasters. Darts! Golf! Pool! Tennis! Triathlons! Blowing all your criminal earnings on Los Santos’ seedy stock market! It’s unclear whether GTA 5’s, ahem, “BAWSAQ” exchange is coming back for the Miami-inspired follow-up, but the new roster is doing plenty of work on its own.
Scattered through the trailer, Lucia and Jason turn up doing basketball, dirt bike races, scuba diving, timed target practice challenges, stock car racing, kayaking and backyard wrestling with WWE signature finishing moves. Going by the standard GTA 5 set, expect each of these to lean on mechanics solid enough to replay.
Stealing a car now takes actual work
Franklin used to press Triangle or Y and be gone with anything parked in Blaine County. At 06:07, Jason kicks off a “Slim Jim” minigame instead, using a flat metal tool to pop the door via a right-stick-timed meter.
Nelson also said fancier vehicles with electronic locks require key cloners before you can steal them, which reads as a fairly clear signal you won’t be hot-wiring every car in GTA 6. Skip to around eight minutes and you’ll see those freshly stolen rides are easier to navigate around town too, thanks to an in-game map HUD where buildings now render in 3D.
Rockstar is raiding its own back catalogue
There’s a boatload of sly winks to past Rockstar titles here. A scene with our deadly duo and Brian Heder out on the water suggests a version of RDR2’s fishing minigame is back. Earlier, Jason’s reckless driving leaves a guy dangling off a bridge, which may hint at the return of GTA 4’s random Stranger Encounters. And Lucia going hard on a bench press is a clear nod to San Andreas’ muscle-building minigames.
More of them keep surfacing. RDR2-style face coverings accessible through an item wheel for robberies. A new animation where the pair conceal their firearms behind their backs before walking into a store. Onscreen icons that appear to track health, wardrobe and vehicle condition, which will look instantly familiar to anyone who spent time as Arthur Morgan.
GTA 6 has in-game binoculars, as well, though peeping through a window at a dude using his VR headset in ultra sleazy fashion is a long way from spotting elk on the horizon.
The GTA 5 nods, including one hiding in the last seconds
Lifeinvader gets a spiritual successor in an optional livestream feed that pops up with a click of R3 while Lucia speeds away from the cops, an unwitting hostage hanging out of the boot of her stolen ride. There’s also an in-game TV ad with boars and deer frolicking around Leonida’s countryside, which suggests Trevor-style hunting missions are on the way back.
Save the best for the final moments, though. Jason inherits Michael De Santa’s slow-mo shooting and those Max Payne 3 killcam shots, and alongside them the trailer appears to show a new vitals targeting system.
Red points mark the killing blows. Yellow markers ring the joints, seemingly your chance to disarm someone without putting them in the ground, à la GTA 4.
