Grand Theft Auto 6 has a new 15-second clip, and plenty of viewers think it’s phone footage shot in Miami-Dade. One person on X was certain enough to write, “this ain’t no gameplay footage this is in real life.”
That viewer got it wrong. The clip went up on Rockstar Games' Instagram stories on Wednesday, and it was captured in the game.
GTA 6 launches in a week, so most of the features Rockstar intends to reveal have probably already crossed your feed. Even so, this clip shows Leonida’s visuals can still surprise people. Viewers are stopping mid-scroll to wonder whether a game can really look this way.
Rockstar remade a Florida video almost shot for shot
The original video comes from OnlyInDade, a regional social media account that shares the odder moments from the Florida county, and Rockstar’s clip copies it closely. A few of the account’s posts make it obvious why Rockstar set its new open-world game in this state. Some of the Miami-Dade incidents sound like spoof Florida Man headlines.
That background is why the imitation lands. Rockstar rebuilt a scene that someone first filmed on a phone in Dade, and anyone who missed the original would have no reason to question it.
Compare the two directly and the game version shows its hand. Far more pedestrians are moving through the real video. Its colors are also flat and lack the saturation a studio uses to make a screenshot stand out.
An emptier street made the fake more believable
Rockstar added shaky camera movement to its clip, which makes it feel like someone is holding the phone. The near-empty sidewalk somehow helps too.
Judging by the number of NPCs visible on its beaches, the game can handle crowds. It could likely have matched the foot traffic in the original. The thinner street in Rockstar’s clip still comes across as more real.
Reddit users are split on whether AI made it
Dozens of the top Reddit replies are arguments over whether the clip was AI-generated. Rockstar hasn’t stated outright that the footage is real gameplay. It seems unlikely the studio would put out fake footage that could mislead its own fans, though that’s an inference and Rockstar hasn’t said so.
OnlyInDade claims the clip is 100% gameplay. One popular fan theory holds that the clip shows what the world could look like when the player films it on their in-game phone. Rockstar hasn’t confirmed that theory.
GTA 6 keeps getting this reaction
The game’s mud already went through the same cycle when fans couldn’t believe how real the digital dirt looked, and the trailers drew plenty of reaction as well. Rockstar has also hinted that the game will be packed with surprising graphical details, much like Red Dead Redemption 2’s infamous horse balls.
Every time the 30 frames-per-second limit comes up, it still causes meltdowns online. Meanwhile, 15 seconds of a fake Miami-Dade sidewalk just had a crowd of people swearing they were watching the real thing.