Following a long time of rumors and speculation, Rockstar has finally revealed what might just be the most anticipated game on the market right now. We have finally got a glimpse of Grand Theft Auto 6 through a brief teaser that takes us on a short ride through the world, and what to expect from the upcoming release.
Rockstar has always been on top of cutting-edge rendering techniques, and Grand Theft Auto 6 is no different. It’s looking like a beautiful game in more ways than one, and with this feature, we will be taking a look at the technical side of things and try to decipher what’s exactly going on here.
Game Engine
Rockstar has been using its internal RAGE engine for developing its games, and Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be the developer’s first native current-gen release. So naturally, GTA 6 is the first time we get to see the updated RAGE engine in action and it’s all looking really impressive at the moment.
Rockstar is known for its amazing attention to detail and high-quality texture work, and those strengths seem to shine brightly in Grand Theft Auto 6. We also get to see the use of modern rendering techniques such as ray-tracing and photogrammetry among a host of other high-quality visual effects that we will be discussing in further sections.
Character Models
Character models with intricacies have always been one of Rockstar’s strongest suits, and with GTA 6, the developer created a huge collection of different NPC models brimming with details. It remains to be seen whether these characters will have their own day and night schedules like seen in Red Dead Redemption 2, but there is no doubt that there is a drastic up tick in density and detailing.
Compared to Rockstar’s previous works, Grand Theft Auto 6 seems to be aiming for a very high benchmark in terms of NPCs. NPC models have highly detailed skin meshes, physically-based materials for the clothes that they don, and animations that look a lot more realistic than before. Character models also seem to have pretty realistic hair physics and you can see instances of it in action throughout the trailer.
The trailer shows a bunch of different NPCs doing all sorts of antics, which most likely hints at them being more interactive than before which seems pretty appropriate for the game’ setting. Grand Theft Auto 6 is set in a fictional rendition of Miami, so it makes complete sense that you would come across plenty of colorful personalities during your travels.
Environments
Switching gears over to the environments, Grand Theft Auto 6 will seemingly thrust players into a beautiful world that’s brimming with tons of attention to detail which makes it a true virtual escapade. The trailer takes you through a bunch of different locations from packed beaches to muddy swamps, from luxurious outlets to large corporate buildings, and from urban neighborhoods to yacht travels and so much more. We don’t know how big Grand Theft Auto 6’s world will be at the moment, but we are sure that it’s going to be a diverse place where everything beautifully flows into one another.
From a more technical standpoint, the world streaming looks to be working in a smooth fashion. The camera showcases large panning shots which seem to flaunt the large draw distances on display here, and the level of detail remains appropriately high for objects and areas far away from the camera. We get to see mild usage of fog which doubles as a way to mask visual drawbacks in distant areas, but it’s all looking pretty impressive nevertheless.
As for the textures, we get to see some high-quality textures being used for different objects throughout the environments. Vegetation looks dense across the board, and textures for surfaces like concrete roads, car surfaces, and different kinds of walls also react differently to light hitting them. We suspect that the developer might be using some form of photogrammetry to generate these realistic textures.
Water also plays an important part in bringing this virtual beach town to life. Naturally, we get to see a lot of water bodies throughout the trailer and its rendering looks to be of top quality. The water meshes are appropriately high quality, and skirting through water on a high-speed motorboat results in proper deformations.
Water also seems to have an appropriately translucent surface, and the level of transparency changes depending on if you are looking at water on a beach versus water in a pool which would obviously be a lot more clearer. Rockstar did a great job with caustic rendering in Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, so we are probably going to see the developer building upon those strong foundations with this sequel.
Briefly taking a look at the skybox as well, the city skyline is peppered with a bunch of cloud formations that look pretty average, to be honest – but what’s more amazing is how light can interact with these clouds and add different kinds of tint to the atmosphere. The trailer showcases multiple instances of the diffuse lighting model which looks great and adds a lot of richness to the world.
The Lighting Model
Grand Theft Auto 6 also seems to have taken some big strides in terms of the lighting model implementation. The game seems to be utilizing some form of ray tracing for its global illumination solution and reflection. Reflections look to be pretty realistic, and we can see some high-quality reflections of the world through the vehicles’ mirror in several scenes which seems to indicate the use of ray tracing for reflections. We weren’t able to make out any instances to gauge how bounce lighting works, but overall the lighting model looks solid for the most part.
Shadows in GTA 6 are rendered for objects that are also far from the camera, and multiple sources of light (both global and scene-specific) will cast shadows on objects and characters – which makes the world feel like an organic place. Fine-grained objects like hair strands and netted windows also cast high-quality shadows on the surfaces, and we saw no signs of shimmering artifacts along these edges.
Final Thoughts on the First Glimpse
The first glimpse of Grand Theft Auto 6 has set the entire internet ablaze with hype and anticipation, and we can’t wait to see how Rockstar makes its technology even better. Historically, Rockstar’s games look better in their retail versions so the final version might look even more stellar. Regardless, the developer seems to have made good use of the horsepower of current-gen consoles to create a world that looks unlike anything that we have seen.
Some developers tend to process trailer footage to make games look better than they actually are, but if history is anything to go by – Rockstar has been really transparent in its showcases so there isn’t much to worry in that regard. Furthermore, the game’s concept of meshing a love story with a criminal arc which is clearly inspired by the adventures of Bonnie and Clyde sounds really enchanting, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store.
Grand Theft Auto 6 will be releasing sometime in 2025 for PS5 and Xbox Series X, and we will be covering a lot more of this game in the near future – so stay tuned to GamingBolt.