GTA VI: twenty-seven minutes, and then it tells you that was a PS5

Rockstar has finally shown us Grand Theft Auto VI properly: an extended look, premiered on Netflix, running the better part of half an hour. I've just watched the lot. I've pre-ordered. I cannot wait.

A weathered VICE CITY sign standing in front of palm trees at sunset, with a private jet passing low overhead. — Vice City, 2026. The pink hasn't gone anywhere.

Unapologetically GTA

From the outset it feels familiar, and I mean that as a compliment. This is a comfy pair of explicit slippers. It opens on a backstreet drugs pickup, a generous helping of f-bombs, and it isn't long before the shooting starts. Definitely not one for the kids.

Nothing there is new or especially innovative — but it's very, very good. The lighting is insane. Faces have real detail in them, the smoky atmosphere sits properly in the air rather than being painted on, and when we escape through a window from a room full of candles with the cops arriving outside, it looks like a film.

Then some cracking music kicks in, we cut to the GTA VI title card, and it's tied beautifully into that Vice City feel.

Lucia leaning on the edge of a rooftop swimming pool in aviator sunglasses, a strawberry cocktail in the foreground and tower blocks behind. — Look at the sweat on her shoulders and the reflection in the lenses.

Lucia in a leather jacket sitting on a yellow motorbike outside a bar at night, a red neon LIQUOR BAR sign glowing behind her. — Neon, humidity and a Leonida plate. It sells itself.

The detail is off the chart

Back in the flat, Lucia gets changed while we poke about as Jason — exploring the fridge, watching a bit of thoroughly inappropriate telly. Small stuff, but it's the small stuff that sells a world.

Then outside into Vice City during the day, and honestly, the detail is off the chart. I always thought V looked incredible. It still does. This turns it up to eleven.

My main practical concern at this point: how much am I going to have to uninstall from my PS5 to fit this thing on it.

An aerial view of Vice City at dusk under a purple sky, with a lit ferris wheel, the Sahara Arena, illuminated tower blocks and busy freeways. — The drone pull-out over the city. This is the shot that sets off the itch to just go and explore.

The driving looks familiar and the roads look properly populated, which was often an issue in earlier GTAs. There's a classic car chase with shooting out of the window and the cops in pursuit. The shooting and aim mechanics look refined rather than reinvented, and the scenery damage feels genuinely realistic.

A white and red eighties-style wedge supercar parked on cobbles at golden hour, headlights and fog lamps lit, palm trees casting long shadows. — Pop-up headlights at golden hour. Someone at Rockstar knows exactly what they're doing.

Everglades tours are in, by the way. Bank robberies with Lucia are in. There's a rooftop bar with a character who is basically Stifler's mom — I'm fairly convinced that's Jennifer Coolidge, though I've not seen it confirmed anywhere. Vice City was a who's who of voice talent, so it would be entirely in keeping.

An overhead shot of an airboat cutting through dark swamp water covered in lily pads, with alligators visible in the weeds either side. — The Everglades, with the locals.

A yellow and white seaplane banking over turquoise water and a long causeway bridge, with the Vice City skyline on the horizon. — The Keys, and the city sitting way off on the horizon.

The soundtrack is already doing the work

A montage of Lucia plays out over Devil Woman, which fits so well it's almost too on the nose. "Are you a professional, Lucia?" "Of course." "I need a professional."

And there's a bit of Phil Collins drifting out of a lift, which made me sit up. GTA and Phil Collins have history — though it's worth being precise about it, because I'd half-remembered this wrong myself. The famous Phil Collins concert isn't in Vice City at all. It's in Vice City Stories, the 2006 PSP game, where Victor Vance has to protect him from assassination attempts before you can buy a $6,000 ticket to watch him perform In the Air Tonight at the Hyman Memorial Stadium. Either way: hearing him in a Vice City lift in 2026 is a lovely bit of continuity.

More broadly the incidental music is a smart blend of eighties electronic and something much more modern. The weather effects look fantastic. The city feels alive.

Inside a dive bar lit by purple and yellow neon: a man in a vest leans over a pool table to take a shot while a man in a bright patterned shirt watches with a beer. — Bars, pool tables, terrible shirts. The texture between the missions.

What the video actually showed

Beyond how it looks, there was a fair amount of hard information in there. These are the things you can see happening in the footage:

You can switch between Jason and Lucia instantly when they're together. When they're apart it still works, but takes a few seconds and transitions the way GTA V did.
Jason has a slow-motion ability that marks kill zones in red and incapacitate zones in yellow — so non-lethal looks like a deliberate option rather than an accident.
Lucia gets her own moments, including a prompt to get a high heel off and put it through someone who's tackled her.
Robbing convenience stores and gas stations is back, alongside the bigger bank jobs.
Proper track races, jet skis, scuba diving and weightlifting all turn up in the montages.
Several ways into a locked car, depending on what tools you're carrying.
Airboats in the Everglades, alligators included.
And the card at the end: all of it captured on a PS5.

And what we know around it

Some of this wasn't obvious from watching, and some of it isn't in the video at all — it's come from Rockstar and from the coverage since. Worth separating out, because it's a different kind of certainty:

The sixth wanted star is back. It's been missing since GTA V, and nobody yet knows what turns up when you reach it.
Your body changes. Food affects Jason and Lucia's weight, and exercising visibly builds and tones muscle — a San Andreas system coming home after twenty-two years.
You can't split them up. It's a Bonnie and Clyde story by design, but the relationship has ebbs and flows depending on your choices.
Deep customisation — clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, makeup and vehicles.
It lands on 19 November 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S only. No PC version has been announced, and no last-gen or Switch 2 version either.
Pre-orders opened on 25 June, at $79.99 for the standard edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate in the US, with regional pricing varying.

The bit I'm being careful about

All of that comes with the standard caveat, and I'd be a fool to skip it: this is a trailer. A very long, very impressive, gameplay-led trailer — but a trailer. The city feels alive; whether that transfers into forty hours of actually playing it is a different question, and one no preview can answer.

And on the platform question: PC players have been here before with V, and they're being asked to wait again. There's no announced PC version, which for a game this size is a conspicuous silence rather than an oversight.

Which brings me to the card that actually got me. After the aerial shots and the logo, it tells you the whole thing was captured on a PS5. Not a dev box, not a target render. The machine already under my telly.

I've pre-ordered. Now I just need to work out what I'm deleting to make room.

Screenshots courtesy of Rockstar Games.

Twenty-seven minutes of GTA VI
— and then it tells you that was running on a PS5