What we spotted in GTA VI’s extended look

As for hand-to-hand combat, it looks to have been refined; the camera is snappier in following your character, opponents respond faster, and overall, there’s a bit more rhythm in the way you and the NPCs throw hands (not unlike an IO Interactive game). Hand-to-hand combat demonstrations were quite sparse, however, so I’m not sure how much we can extrapolate from this showcase alone.

And finally, we get a look at the revamped Wanted system. Not only are we back to the old-school six-star Wanted level, the showcase hints at smarter police AI via several Heat icons below the Wanted stars, which indicate how the game’s police will identify you. This includes appearance, weapons used, the car you’re last seen driving, and more.

All this means you’ll have to put in more effort to escape the law, though it also helps you narrow down which methods you can use to evade officers, depending on which Heat icons you have. In the image above, for example, the icons only indicate that the police know what the Wanted characters look like and that there are two of them; as both Jason and Lucia are hidden in a vehicle not identified by the police (the van in this case), the player remains undetected even with cop cars zipping in front of them.

What’s new in Vice City?

We get a look at the variety of activities the player can do in Vice City, too. These side missions and mini-games are arguably the heart of any GTA game, and Rockstar made sure to show us as much of that as possible, including basketball, scuba diving, and a multitude of races, from stock cars to dirtbikes.

Rockstar also hasn’t forgotten the snappy cultural commentary, a staple of GTA. Apart from some satirical TV ads showcasing the wackiness of modern America, one specific mission also shows a livestream chat overlay as you speed away in a car chase with a streamer in your trunk, so the game certainly has something to say about modern-day social media too.

This aspect of worldbuilding was one that Rockstar pushed in the showcase, not just in themes but also in the game’s environment. Being based on southern Florida, there’s a good variety of regions present in the game. Of course, there’s urban and suburban areas, but in addition to beaches (which we’re used to from GTA V), we also get swamp and river environments reminiscent of the real-life Everglades wetlands. This brings its own set of activities and navigation methods, including airboating.

Having two protagonists also means that character switching makes its return, and it looks pretty similar to GTA V. You can jump into a random cutscene as you swap characters in free roam, and Rockstar has even kept the bird’s eye view animation. Unscripted character swaps in the middle of combat (shown during a car chase snippet) also make a return. 

Finally, graphical improvements are another big highlight. It’s certainly a looker, even if it’s on a PS5, a console platform that’s six years old now. And it’s not just in the lighting or the resolution of the textures, but it’s also in the small details, like how sparks fly when you shoot or scrape metal, or how cars smoke out as they flip over.

Overall, what struck me was the overwhelming sense that, despite the showcase being almost half-an-hour long, it only scratched the surface of what the game will be. Not just because of the jump cuts in the showcase’s main story missions, but also because players are still solving mysteries and uncovering easter eggs in GTA V despite it being released 13 years ago. It’ll be no surprise if players continue to make discoveries in GTA VI come 2039.

GTA VI will be released on 19 November 2026. The game will be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on launch, and you can pre-order it now from Rockstar’s website. The Standard Edition costs S$109, while the Ultimate Edition, which comes with a slate of in-game items and a month of GTA+, costs S$136.