These bonuses have been noted as fluctuating quite wildly, with Rockstar Games offering no justification for the matter. “When the bonus is particularly good, it can be a windfall, but often the bonus is disappointing, and one can end up being paid considerably less than expected for the year,” said one of the union members. “The reasoning given for this is often nebulous, inconsistent between departments, even inconsistent between team members within the same department, and sometimes hinges on completely subjective or retroactive criticisms.”

Career progression has also been called a difficult proposition at the studio, with it being accused of moving the goalposts whenever the subject comes up.

“The main problem is that [bonuses and progression are] all completely discretionary for the company, and they are under no obligation to show their working,” they continued. “Employees want good pay, and if literally anything they do that year could affect it, they will naturally feel they have to be as pliable as possible to their boss’s whims. Imagine [how you might feel if] a fifth of your salary could be withheld without any justification or based on a single surprise factor.”

This, in turn, has seemingly led to a company-wide feeling of imbalance, note the RGWU members, since there are some employees making “hundreds of millions of pounds, there are those receiving excellent pay for their work and are grateful, and there are certainly those that are woefully underpaid for their effort and the incredible profits gained.”

On the subject of crunch, the union members said that the practice is quite prevalent at Rockstar Games, with an “opt-out” of the UK’s Working Time Regulations being written directly into employment contracts. The regulation would stop an employer from asking an employee to do more than 10 extra hours of work per week. The union has seen some success on this matter with a campaign to inform employees that they could opt back into the regulations at any time.

“Part of the problem with crunch is that there is not an agreed definition, and now it seems the company thinks that offering specific and limited compensation as an incentive for overtime means it no longer qualifies as crunch,” they said.

Employees at Rockstar Games have also requested that the company officially recognize the union, which would give workers more rights and collective bargaining ability while also forcing more accountability on Rockstar Games’ leadership. Despite these current issues, the RGWU members have noted that they will still have to work with the company to ensure that the workers are taken care of in the right way.

“For us workers, we have no say in who our superiors are. We must try to work with them regardless and hope that they are more interested in engaging with their employees to build some mutual trust moving forward,” they said.

In the meantime, Rockstar Games is currently working on Grand Theft Auto 6 for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, which is slated for release on November 19th.

It’s how we stumbled upon Amazon Brazil’s listing for the game, and a detail that has us quite optimistic about Leonida becoming one of Rockstar’s most immersive and authentic open worlds. Yes, the graphics are going to be an important factor in making it believable, but we think it’s the city’s denizens that are really going to sell the experience. We’re beginning to suspect that Leonida’s real strength is going to come from its people, making it a real, reactive place that makes us a part of its identity.

Why is that? As always, we’re happy to tell you all about it. Strap in for this one, and let’s go!

The Promise Of A Better World

Let’s begin with what the retail listing claims is going to be a part of the experience on offer in GTA 6. Yes, there are factors like a dynamic weather system with potential effects on physics and gameplay alongside advanced ray tracing and reflections, and PS5 Pro-focused enhancements that could mean better resolutions and more stable frame rates. They’re all reasons to be excited, but are we really expecting anything less from one of modern gaming’s biggest and most ambitious titles?

We’re interested in all the other details that the listing promises. There are NPCs with advanced, AI-based routines for starters, and organically unfolding events peppered all around the map. The listing reports that the game’s version of Vice City and Leonida is going to be denser and more immersive, while an entire social media system that’s baked in could keep pushing viral videos to your character’s phone as you go about your day-to-day life in the city.

Vice City might also have influencers, who could lead you to secret side missions, giving you a good enough reason to engage with them in non-violent ways, even if they get too annoying. Establishments within the world could be interactive in ways you haven’t seen before. There’s a lot of promise in what the retailer suggests, and although we’d advise waiting until Rockstar confirms that all of this is indeed a part of the game, it’s still hard not to get excited at the thought of what it all means for an open-world that follows in the footsteps of games like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, which are already quite high on our list of favorites in the genre.

A Living, Breathing World

The reason we’re so invested in the details about Leonida’s NPCs is that they’re always a part of Rockstar’s success, since its games live or die by what you’re doing in between missions in the main campaign. GTA 6 will already have us visiting a lot of the city’s points of interest, spreading it all out over police chases, heists, set-pieces, story chapters, and more. But those are kind of standard for the franchise at this point, and while we’re sure they’re going to be great, they’re not what players will hold with them long after they’ve rolled the credits on the grand adventure they experience.

It’s what they’re going to do in Leonida when they’ve got nothing on their plate that’s a potential fountain of fond memories, a personal collection of highlights that’s going to fuel the community built around the experience, and reasons to look back fondly on the game. Hell, it could all prompt a truly enthusiastic player to dive right back into a new playthrough to build an entirely different set of memories and fun moments. It’s going to places where the game doesn’t tell you to go; that’s a huge part of what makes Rockstar’s games memorable. The visuals could make the world look real, but it’s authentic NPC behavior that makes it feel real.

Think about RDR2, and what we’re trying to say here becomes clearer. The NPCs in Rockstar’s take on the Wild West didn’t feel like mere props, a facet that many other open worlds have neglected in comparison. Your camp members had lives of their own and were often found running errands or doing chores, their moods varying enough to make them feel like living beings, thanks to the conversations you could have with them.

Random encounters as you made your way across the world gave the impression of a world that was crafted to be unpredictable yet authored in a way that blurred the lines between a truly historical recreation and a digital sandbox that was built to suck you in. Witnesses to your crimes, bounty hunters, lawmen, and the like knew your face when your actions were not a part of the accepted social standards set down on their lands, while the honor system gave all of it a unique flavor that influenced the outcome of your time with Arthur. Meet the same folks a little down the line, and your actions were a part of how they responded to seeing you again.

Animals, settlements, and the strangers you got to meet were part of the illusion that the world you were exploring was one that existed independently of you and would continue to do so long after you were gone. It was a lovely undercurrent to the experience that made the narrative’s melancholic ending all the more poignant as a result.

But for all those merits, RDR2’s frontier-style experience allowed for a slower, more controlled approach to its open world. But GTA 6 has to factor in a significantly larger number of variables. There are things like traffic, highways, stores, the police, influencers, fellow criminals who may or may not be aligned with your own interests, tourists, the social media system, and the general hustle and bustle of the city to account for. That’s a challenge that we believe could push even Rockstar to its limits.

Getting Things Right

Of course, Rockstar’s track record could very well mean that it manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat with GTA 6, but the sheer scale of it all has us thinking of all the possible things it would need to do to manage such a feat. It wouldn’t be enough to merely have NPCs have AI-generated conversations, and we don’t think that Rockstar would even bother with such an approach (more on that a little later). But we think that the game’s AI is going to be invisible, working behind the scenes to make its systems come to life in ways that sell the experience on offer.

Let’s speculate a little on what that could mean. NPCs in Leonida could go to work, visit stores on the way home, maybe get a workout in before they take a shower, and go out exploring. Perhaps they could start a livestream while they’re at it, which you could then check out before heading on over yourself. That’s a day-and-night cycle with a multitude of possibilities already. We can already imagine the more patient ones among you following an NPC just to see if their routines are as elaborate as they are if that’s the case.

This tackles a normal day in the life of an NPC in GTA 6. But what if you were to upset that routine by perhaps committing a crime? You could draw the attention of those very same folks who could crown the scene and record a video (which then goes viral), or call the cops on you. They could run away in fright, or even try to confront you if they’re feeling particularly brave that day, which could very well be the case if their moods dynamically change from one day to the next.

Of course, that could mean that dynamic events wouldn’t have to be scripted but would be naturally unfolding responses to our own actions in Leonida. They wouldn’t need to be fixed markers that trigger when we get close, instead stemming from overlapping systems like the weather, law enforcement’s presence and influence in a region, traffic and NPC schedules, and social media trends, all of which act together to respond to what we’re doing in a specific place at a specific time. The possibilities then become endless.

It could also mean that the police could have more agency over the severity of their response to any crimes you commit, with factors like access to the area, available witnesses and footage of an incident, crowd density that may influence what weaponry they’re carrying, and, of course, the severity of the crime itself. It would mean a departure from GTA 5, where they simply spawn around your location to set off a chase.

There’s also the weather to think about. Storms might change how NPCs behave, with lower traffic and pedestrian movement, a change in driving and traversal physics, beach crowds, visibility, police patrolling, boat activity, and perhaps even mission conditions. We’ve already talked about the potential for influencers to change the way you discover side activities. Think about watching a viral clip and following the influencer in question to a location, or perhaps finding the place from their feeds.

All of these factors could eliminate question marks on a map entirely while also ensuring that no two players find a specific mission or event in the same way, creating a net of variables that ensures a unique experience for each of us, while still managing to pull from the same pool of scripted and unscripted content. It challenges traditional open-world design in interesting ways, where map icons, the above-mentioned question marks, scripted “random” encounters, fixed side mission locations, and NPCs just waiting for us to find them have become the norm.

GTA 6 could create exceptions that directly challenge these practices, bringing events that you discover for yourself instead of stumbling upon, with multiple ways to get to them hiding in plain sight but never fully revealing themselves. NPC routines could make triggers for attached quests or secrets become dynamically moving markers that you find so organically that you never think that they’re a part of a script. Side missions would need you to be in the right place at the right time, just as something like that would unfold in the real world. Shops and other establishments would become more than just decorative presences, going beyond their functionality to present you with even more variables. Crowds could be a facet that generates stories instead of just filling empty spaces in Leonida’s real estate.

Honestly, it’s made our brains hurt thinking about all the ways Rockstar could manage to make Leonida the best open-world it’s made, and possibly the best one we could be a part of in the last decade or so. But can it fit within the GTA franchise’s framework? Absolutely!

Risks and Rewards

You’re probably already with us on this, but GTA is the perfect franchise for the kind of chaos we’re thinking of. It isn’t hard to imagine pulling up our in-game phones to view a social media feed that points us to a specific location where something interesting has gone down, only to arrive there and find that the area has been cordoned off by the police. Talking to witnesses could provide new leads to follow, which could then allow an entire chain of side quests to unfold more organically than ever seen in any other open world.

All of this is a natural fit for the franchise, which has already demonstrated its ability to simulate life in a busy city in GTA 6’s predecessor, where your phone and the internet were already a way for the game to bring its satire and mission-related tools into the gameplay loop. GTA 6 could make your phone become a more natural part of the gameplay loop and a crucial tool that your adventure hinges on, making it a living, breathing mission board, rumor system, discovery tool, and a layer of world reactivity all on its own. And with it on your person at all times, it becomes the catalyst for a whole lot of chaos.

That would be really cool if it’s all done well, but we’re wondering if it could also be something that breaks the immersion if things don’t go according to plan. NPC behavior could fall into repetitive loops, or even worse, cause them to say the same old boring lines over and over again. Those are aspects we’ve seen a lot of over the years, and it’s been a while since they’ve gotten old. Random events could be so random they stop feeling believable, which is something we haven’t seen but could definitely break the spell Leonida casts on us.

AI-generated content could clash with authored writing, a conflict that would be all too evident in an adventure that comes with such an ambitious undertaking. Of course, there’s also the ever-present threat of bugs causing a lot of the magic to collapse right in front of us, a scenario that threatens the very fabric of Leonida’s unpredictability in ways that would need a lot of work to set right. Too many systems working together could mean that they eventually work against each other, making mission designs feel unpredictable in a bad way. It’s going to need a balance that’s as thin as a tightrope, but we’ve already said that Rockstar is a studio that could pull it off. It’s time to look at why.

Think of its legacy. GTA 4 was already more reactive and physical than most of the open worlds available to us at the time of its release. GTA 5 continues to be a gift that keeps on giving, with its modern sandbox offering an online experience that continues to keep its players coming back for more to this day. We’ve already spoken at length about RDR2, and it remains unmatched. That gives us a lot of confidence, as it’s not just the intelligent use of AI in creating a game world that makes GTA 6 a potential game-changer, but the fact that it’s Rockstar working to refine design philosophies that it has worked with for decades, making great use of available technology and hardware to bring pioneering experiences to the table.

If Amazon Brazil indeed has things right, GTA 6’s biggest innovation is going to be in how Leonida reacts to what we do when we engage with it without a goal in mind. With a world made stunning by better reflections and weather, it could also be one that feels genuinely alive thanks to how NPC AI could simulate the real world. RDR2 has already paved the way for such a groundbreaking approach. All GTA 6 needs to do is take that same philosophy and implement it across the board to make a world that’s louder, more chaotic, and modern.

Leonida could be a place where everyone has somewhere to be, and every crowd could tell stories better than a single NPC at a fixed location ever could. It could make every crime you commit become content, and make your every action the source of a new thread of activities to follow, the main campaign be damned.

We’re hoping that’s the case. It would definitely help us feel that the long wait for this one was worth it, and perhaps even a necessary part of the experience. Well, our fingers are definitely crossed, and we’re glad we’re not going to have to wait too long to find out if we’re right.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

The $80 price point is a stickler – I mean, many of us expected that. Some even suspected a $100 price, though Rockstar took the roundabout approach of locking five stores behind the same for the full-fledged experience. Triple-A gaming strikes again: unimaginable levels of greed, so on and so forth. But what’s truly been curious is the backlash against the lack of a disc with the physical version.

Is it priced any differently from the digital version? No. Is it simply a box with a code in it? Yes. Is Rockstar doing this to avoid leaks from retailers who break street date? At that point, we’re several steps removed from conspiracy theories about the PC version being ready and waiting to go, but facing a delay to ensure it doesn’t suffer a Steam leak like so many other high-profile games over the past year.

Yet it’s the lack of a physical disc that has people worked up. There’s a rumor that a proper physical release could happen in December. Then a response from Rockstar customer support claimed it was months away. And before any hope could materialize, The Hollywood Reporter, of all publications, cited a source claiming there won’t be a physical disc at launch or in the months after, and that the support message is valid but interpreted the wrong way. All in the span of a few days, mind you.

Of course, it’s not unreasonable to ask questions like, “Why are Rockstar and Take-Two demanding such a high price and not committing to providing a disc?” Whether you’re a collector, someone who believes in preservation or someone who doesn’t want to download the entire game for another playthrough somewhere down the line (even if you still have to deal with tens of gigs of updates), it’s not the loftiest expectation in the world.

But such is the hoopla around all this that other developers, like Insomniac Games with Marvel’s Wolverine, are getting caught in the crossfire. Neither releasing on the same date, let alone in the same month, but still wanting to reassure players – yes, it has a disc in the box. And as absurd as it seems, I wouldn’t be surprised if more developers issue the same statements, either to reassure retailers who won’t stock Grand Theft Auto 6 due to the lack of a disc or their players to avoid any kind of negative press. Or really any backlash, even if their sales skew massively towards digital, because the coming release period is so crucial and only a few will rise to the top.

The funny thing in all this isn’t people debating whether this is the new normal or whether publishers should be allowed to get away scot-free, especially in an age where digital ownership is a big deal, and a large chunk of gaming relies on an internet connection. It’s actually the shock at how much of the “new normal” this has really become.

You could go, “What’s next? Collector’s Editions with Steelbooks and no discs?” Yeah, PlayStation and Santa Monica Studio already beat you to that particular point of anger in 2022 with Ragnarok. The Collector’s edition didn’t have a physical disc.

Think times have changed? Feast your eyes on the Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Collector’s Edition with its 15-inch Magellan Man statue, art cards, a specially crafted box and even a Dollman figurine. Yet, no physical disc. That will be $230, but look on the bright side – at least it has a letter from Hideo Kojima himself.

You could argue that the lack of a physical disc is to keep costs down and that these are simply items for the more ardent collectors, but we come back once again to the crux of the matter. At these prices, a disc seems a given with how much money you’re putting down. Then again, it could just be a means for publishers – in this case, Sony – to have you spend extra for the actual game. Either way, the result is the same.

And while both of these editions received, at best, a moderate reaction given their price, Grand Theft Auto 6 has blown the entire discussion wide open. Now, that may not seem very fair. Then again, neither of those games is GTA 6. Just as that name entails a certain level of quality and seemingly allows for justifying $80 when other triple-A publishers simply wouldn’t dare, so too does it result in massive expectations in every single way. That includes something as seemingly innocuous as locking off a few stores out of dozens or providing a disc instead of a download code.

Yet suddenly, we’re in an age where the resale market is dead, physical retailers get the short end of the stick, and gamers face persecution…when these have all been ongoing issues for a while. Those who have purchased physical editions for years have had to go beyond simply asking whether there’s a disc. They’ve also had to look at a game’s playability without relying on downloadable updates. I still remember the controversy around Monster Hunter Rise in 2021, which shipped without a proper ending and final boss. Those got added a month later in an update, but that decision alone meant that some players never bothered with the physical edition, insane as it sounds.

Again, such is the hype and attention around Grand Theft Auto 6 that it could bring much wider attention to such issues. That it could prompt questions about whether gamers are actually getting a raw deal with a physical edition or simply a pretty box to stare at. Some companies, like PlayStation, may be looked at as “consumer-friendly” for doing the bare minimum, even though they’re very much part of the problem.

All the attention is ultimately a good thing, though, because it raises these issues higher than before, even if it’s sometimes through the same repetitive memes. The problem is all this will be drowned out over time.

That’s not just because this is the first step in the marketing cycle and that trailer 3 hype will effectively override any lingering concerns. Or that the proper gameplay showcase will have millions, including us, dissecting every bit for new details. It all goes back to the same reason why digital sales have become so dominant – most players don’t care about physical copies. So while there’s some justification for demanding a disc, even for old time’s sake, Rockstar and Take-Two will see the pre-order numbers and the tens of millions lining up on launch day, and they will simply continue as is, the entire “ordeal” will become an unrecognizable bump in the road towards billions in revenue.

Welcome to the new normal. You’ve been here for years.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Regardless of the region – the US, UK, France, Canada, India, Japan, or even South Korea – the Ultimate Edition for Grand Theft Auto 6 has been topping the sales charts, as can be seen through the “All games” section of the PlayStation Store. It is worth keeping in mind that this only accounts for digital sales, and sales for the physical edition are currently unknown.

As for how well it might be doing on Xbox Series X/S, the sales data isn’t quite available yet. However, navigating the Xbox website might eventually lead you to the “Popular Optimized games” page, which also indicates that Grand Theft Auto 6 has been quite a popular title to pre-order and wishlist.

Rumors had indicated that pre-orders for Rockstar Games’ upcoming title were much higher on PS5 than on Xbox Series X/S, by a ratio of 6 to 1. However, without offering any real numbers, a Microsoft spokesperson has clarified that the company has been seeing “record” pre-orders on its platforms as well.

Fans who might be thinking of waiting for a bit before buying the title in the hopes that a physical release with a disc might be released, reports have indicated that this is unlikely to happen. Citing a “source with knowledge of the plans,” The Hollywood Reporter has claimed that a disc release for GTA 6 isn’t planned for launch or the following months.

Circana’s Mat Piscatella, known for his analysis of the gaming market, doesn’t think that the lack of a disc will have much impact on the sales expectations for Grand Theft Auto 6. Pointing to the popularity of current-gen consoles lacking a disc drive, like the PS5 Digital Edition and Xbox Series S, Piscatella also noted that retailers that don’t deal in used games are likely happy about the lack of a disc in the physical release as well.

“Anyways, devil’s advocate here, but given the % of PS5/XBS consoles out there without a disc drive, one could argue code in box may provide a better opportunity for retailers, particularly those that don’t sell used,” he wrote. “In any case, can’t say this changes anything regarding total sales expectations.”

Analysts have also spoken about how the higher-than-average price for Grand Theft Auto 6 – $80 for its standard edition – might have a larger impact on the industry. NYU Stern School of Business professor and industry researcher Joost van Dreunen, for instance, spoke about how gaming is becoming more of a luxury category as time moves on.

“Its economics have historically centered around a winner-takes-most model, and GTA 6 raises the bar again. Publishers who can clear it will pull further ahead, and those who cannot will have to compete on distribution instead, finding new channels, bundles, and pricing models to reach players the blockbusters don’t.”

As for fans who are waiting for an eventual PC release of Grand Theft Auto 6, the wait might be a long one, since Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick has said that console players are the “core audience” for the game.

Professor at NYU Stern School of Business and industry researcher Joost van Dreunen reiterated his previous thoughts on the matter, saying that the new price tag is “reserved for only a select few titles and franchises”.

“Gaming is increasingly becoming a luxury category,” van Dreunen explained. “Its economics have historically centered around a winner-takes-most model, and GTA 6 raises the bar again. Publishers who can clear it will pull further ahead, and those who cannot will have to compete on distribution instead, finding new channels, bundles, and pricing models to reach players the blockbusters don’t.”

Analysts had spoken about this shortly after pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto 6 went live earlier this month. Among them was Kantan Games CEO Dr. Serkan Toto, who mentioned the fact that Take-Two Interactive had gone with higher price tags before.

“Why should it not become the trailblazer for the industry again? Jumping from $70 to $80 is a 14.3% price increase, which is quite a lot. It will very much depend on the game, but I can easily see some marquee titles going for this price, perhaps even this year, too.”

Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliot mentioned that publishers who aim for the $80 price tag without a game that is comparable in terms of cultural and commercial significance to Grand Theft Auto 6 or Mario Kart World are in for a rude awakening. He also noted that even Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn’t quite have the pricing power to go beyond the $80 ceiling.

“I think a lot of publishers are about to learn that the hard way,” said Elliot. “GTA 6 has more pricing power than any game on earth, and it still didn’t go above $80. If the biggest release in the industry’s history looked at the ceiling and chose not to break it, that should tell everyone else the ceiling is real, and they’ll smack their head on it. The danger is that publishers read ‘GTA is $80′ as a green light and push their own run-of-the-mill or new-IP games to $80, when the lesson is the opposite: even GTA didn’t think it could go higher.”

In the meantime, rumors have indicated that pre-orders for the PS5 version of Grand Theft Auto 6 have been far outperforming the Xbox Series X/S version. The former is said to be beating the latter by a ratio of six to one. Despite this lead that the PS5 might have, Microsoft has clarified that Xbox has been seeing “record orders”.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is slated for release on November 19th. For more, check out our thoughts on why a new trailer is likely dropping soon.

Nevertheless, this prompted a spokesperson to tell Windows Central that this “doesn’t represent pre-order data. We’ve had record orders. People should wait for real data and not clicks on affiliate links.”

They’re not wrong, even with IGN’s significant influence in the gaming sphere. Why did Xbox feel the need to clarify this, especially considering all the other ongoing issues, like impending layoffs? There’s also the small matter of announcing a big game, Senua, from a studio like Ninja Theory, while apparently knowing that it’s on the chopping block in July.

Regardless, Grand Theft Auto 6 is a big deal, and with Xbox announcing more price hikes for its Series X/S consoles, this clarification may be a way to tackle any negative implications. Of course, even if Xbox is seeing record pre-order numbers, you have to remember that it’s a relative figure, since there are far more PS5 consoles out there.

Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19th, and it should be interesting to see its returns, especially given the reported budget of over $2 billion. Stay tuned for updates in the meantime.

However, The Hollywood Reporter notes that this isn’t the case, as a “source with knowledge of the plans” claims there won’t be GTA 6 discs at launch or in the months after. They seemingly noted what others pointed out – that the “physical copy” referred to by support is the same version that doesn’t include a disc in the box.

The “following months” part apparently isn’t referring to the period after launch but rather since Wednesday’s announcement. None of this sounds unreasonable, mind you.

But it’s worth noting the lack of official response from Rockstar. That doesn’t necessarily mean plans couldn’t change at some point, but for now, the current offerings are all you get. It’s also yet to respond to backlash against the Ultimate Edition, which includes five exclusive clothing, tattoo, hair stylist, and vehicle shops. So it goes.

With Grand Theft Auto 6 out on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PS5, we’re looking forward to the next big trailer or gameplay reveal. Perhaps we’ll learn more about the more realistic NPCs, dynamic weather or how social media works.

But while GTA 6 is fulfilling its role as a savior of sorts for console sales, which saw their worst-ever May in US history, it seems supply can’t keep up with demand. Besides a “major games retailer” warning The Game Business about a lack of consoles, a “senior games buyer” who wasn’t authorized to speak by their employer said, “We’ve been informed that because of the ongoing issues around hardware component availability, we won’t be getting the units we want ahead of GTA. Demand will likely outstrip supply during the year-end period.”

Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar may very well be laughing all the way to the bank (as they should with how high the budget allegedly is), Grand Theft Auto 6 won’t immediately expand the console user market as many might have hoped. And with Xbox Series X/S consoles seeing price hikes, with memory and storage prices expected to increase further by late 2027, there’s unlikely to be any improvement until 2028.

Granted, we won’t know how that will affect the game’s sales in that interim. For the time being, the hype is immaculate and will only pick up in the next few months ahead of its November 19th release. Head here for all the latest details.

The latter is interesting because we’ve seen it rumored before. According to KaBuM!’s listing, you can expect “Storms and time changes that alter physics and gameplay.” Previous reports alleged that high-speed driving will be affected alongside the environment. Maybe it’s the difference between dusty roads on Mount Kalaga and muddy trails, with the latter being far more slippery.

The PlayStation Store already confirmed that Grand Theft Auto 6 is PS5 Pro Enhanced, but further details are still pending. The listings, however, indicate “improved performance, more stable frame rates (FPS), and even sharper resolutions.” Which is all well and good, but the resolution and frame rates for base consoles haven’t even been revealed, so there’s not much of a basis to go on.

Regardless, it’s part of PlayStation’s close partnership with Rockstar and the push that Grand Theft Auto 6 truly plays best on PS5. With the title launching on November 19th for $80 ($100 if you want all the exclusive store access in the Ultimate Edition), there’s still plenty of time to learn more. At the very least, you can learn more about how Rockstar leverages the DualSense in different ways.

Each has different abilities, but the most interesting part is that these can “directly influence the criminal ecosystem and the tactical intelligence of the missions.” Perhaps each character has ways to gather intel and open up new methods to tackle different missions.

But the most intriguing part is the NPCs, which purportedly have “their own routines based on advanced AI, generating organic random events across the map.” Social media has also apparently advanced significantly to the point where you can watch viral videos in real-time and even follow different Vice City influencers. And even if you don’t particularly care about the personalities, social media can lead to “secret side missions.”

Of course, that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to new details, and Rockstar has yet to confirm the legitimacy of them, much less any new gameplay. As always, stay tuned for more updates, especially with Grand Theft Auto 6 set to launch on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Pre-orders are currently live, with the Standard Edition costing $80 and the Ultimate Edition setting you back by $100 while featuring exclusive content.