At the fourteen-minute mark of the GTA 6 extended look, Jason is leaning out of the back of a getaway car with an automatic rifle, trying to hold off police cruisers and a helicopter. The real news, though, is tucked into the corner of the screen and easy to miss: six Wanted stars.
That matters more than it might seem. The Wanted system in GTA 5 topped out at five, making the Los Santos entry the outlier of the series — every other 3D game in the franchise included a sixth star, which in GTA 4 meant the SWAT-like NOOSE units.
Netflix had the 26-minute extended look exclusively for just six hours before it landed on YouTube and elsewhere, ahead of the game’s currently listed November 19 release date. It’s our most detailed view yet of Vice City along with the bayous and forests of Leonida, and there’s plenty tucked away inside it.
Rockstar North hasn’t been idle. With Grand Theft Auto 6 potentially taking more than 80 hours to finish, fresh mechanics were inevitable, and the trailer quietly puts reworked gunplay, more involved carjacking, a respect-style system and a stack of revamped minigames on display.
Yes, you can switch between Lucia and Jason
As with big stretches of GTA 5, Rockstar’s Bonnie and Clyde can be swapped between on the fly. Look at the 18:41 mark, where control shifts from Jason to Lucia as both leads wrestle with the chaos of a chase sequence from their red convertible.
Certain missions appear to tie you to a single character, either by asking you to choose or by settling the matter in a cutscene. At 10:50, criminal associate Brian Heder pitches a job to Lucia and Jason over drinks at the Effluvia, a glitzy rooftop bar in downtown Vice City. The pair debate who should take it for a moment before Lucia gets up and walks off, leaving Jason with the job and his Pißwasser — GTA’s trademark lager, if you’d forgotten.
The Criminal Profile system is the part nobody’s confirmed in detail
That expanded Wanted level arrives bundled with a new Criminal Profile system, which was described in a preview writeup rather than a proper Rockstar breakdown — so the specifics remain unconfirmed. It reportedly functions somewhat like the Honor system from Red Dead Redemption 2, but with more nuance promised. According to that preview, GTA 6 doesn’t treat every crime the same: shooting back at an aggressive NPC who picked the fight won’t be weighted as heavily as a full-blown killing spree.
There’s also room to back out of encounters before they turn violent, defusing them via onscreen dialogue options to either taunt or smooth things over — another RDR2 callback. In the same preview, Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson said that “consistent actions may have an impact in terms of how the world reacts to you and how the narrative plays out.” Even small gestures apparently count: tossing trash into a garbage can or feeding one of Leonida’s many animals can push Lucia or Jason’s Criminal Profile in a positive direction.
Gunplay changes you can only spot by squinting
Rockstar hasn’t said much about the changes to GTA’s shooting and melee systems, so what follows is fan observation drawn from footage rather than an official spec sheet. The most obvious change: switching between two firearms no longer requires opening a weapon wheel. Lucia demonstrates it at 18:31 on an outdoor target range, going from a high-powered rifle to her pistol without missing a beat.
Weapons also seem faster and simpler to pick up. During a frantic office firefight near the end of the trailer, Jason snatches an enemy’s Duke 556 assault rifle in one fluid motion, and aiming generally looks cleaner. Whether some of that comes down to the studio having auto-aim switched on for the recorded gameplay footage isn’t something anyone outside Rockstar can judge.
And one more: some weapons can apparently be handled one-handed. At 09:21, Lucia is tearing through enemies with a shotgun in one hand while the other lugs a large bag stuffed with cash, weapons or narcotics.
The side activities are going to eat your weekends
Open-world distractions have always been a Grand Theft Auto specialty. Darts! Golf! Pool! Tennis! Triathlons! Dumping every dollar of your criminal earnings into Los Santos’ shady stock market! Whether GTA 5’s, ahem, “BAWSAQ” exchange returns for this Miami-inspired sequel is still unknown, but the new lineup is pulling plenty of weight regardless.
Across the trailer, Lucia and Jason are shown playing basketball, racing dirt bikes, scuba diving, running timed target practice challenges, competing in stock car racing, kayaking and taking part in backyard wrestling complete with WWE signature finishing moves. If the GTA 5 template holds, each should be built on mechanics sturdy enough to keep coming back to.
Stealing a car now takes actual work
Franklin needed only a tap of Triangle or Y to make off with anything parked in Blaine County. At 06:07, Jason instead triggers a “Slim Jim” minigame, working a flat metal tool into the door against a meter timed with the right stick.
Nelson added that higher-end vehicles fitted with electronic locks demand key cloners before they can be taken, which strongly suggests hot-wiring won’t work on every car in GTA 6. Jump to roughly the eight-minute mark and you’ll notice those newly stolen vehicles are easier to steer through the city as well, courtesy of an in-game map HUD that now renders buildings in 3D.
Rockstar is raiding its own back catalogue
Sly references to earlier Rockstar games are everywhere. A scene putting the deadly duo out on the water with Brian Heder hints that some form of RDR2’s fishing minigame has returned. Before that, Jason’s reckless driving leaves a man dangling from a bridge, possibly signalling a comeback for GTA 4’s random Stranger Encounters. And Lucia working hard on a bench press is an unmistakable nod to San Andreas’ muscle-building minigames.
They keep piling up, too. RDR2-style face coverings selectable from an item wheel for robberies. A fresh animation showing the pair tucking their firearms behind their backs before stepping into a store. Onscreen icons that seem to monitor health, wardrobe and vehicle condition — immediately recognisable to anyone who logged hours as Arthur Morgan.
Binoculars are in the game as well, though using them to spy through a window at a guy with a VR headset behaving in ultra sleazy fashion is quite a departure from scanning the horizon for elk.
The GTA 5 nods, including one hiding in the last seconds
Lifeinvader gets a spiritual heir in the form of an optional livestream feed, summoned with a click of R3 as Lucia tears away from police with an unwitting hostage hanging out of the boot of her stolen car. An in-game TV commercial featuring boars and deer roaming Leonida’s countryside also points to the return of Trevor-style hunting missions.
The best is saved for the closing moments, though. Jason picks up Michael De Santa’s slow-mo shooting along with those Max Payne 3 killcam shots, and the trailer seems to reveal a new vitals targeting system running alongside them.
Killing blows are flagged with red points. Yellow markers circle the joints, apparently giving you the option to disarm a target rather than kill them, in the vein of GTA 4.