Even for the common man, it is no secret the anticipation for Grand Theft Auto VI. Rockstar Games has now cemented a November 19th release date and marketing is prepared to be ramping up soon for its fall release. It was reported last month that PlayStation will handle the marketing rights for the blockbuster release. Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to be one of the biggest budgets for a game ever.
Through users that estimated the spendings by Rockstar Games & Take-Two Interactive, it was indicated that roughly $1 billion might have been invested into the development for Grand Theft Auto VI. And the payoff is to begin later this week for its investors. Rockstar Games announced that pre-orders are to go live for the game later on June 25th.
As part of the reveal, the cover art for Grand Theft Auto VI was unveiled. Additionally, a greater look at Vice City was revealed as well. Looking through a bigger lens over at Digital Foundry, it was uncovered that the game will feature some form of native raytracing for the game according to the footage provided.
First of all, ray tracing is indeed used to draw reflections across Vice City’s central bay. One sign is that the game mirrors the geometric mesh of nearby buildings in this case, but without shadows or ambient occlusion factored in too. Ray tracing can be configured in multiple ways to save on GPU performance – and the RAGE engine will have its own unique setup that we can’t speak to.
Thomas Morgan goes on to say this corroborates with the previous Trailer 2 for Grand Theft Auto VI which also shares fragments of raytracing in the footage as well. It is understood that Rockstar Games is using a hybrid of both raytracing & screenspace reflections. The article goes into uncovering where the reflection for the ferris wheel went and pointed at the likely culprit of camera distance which negates reflection rendering which could support it running on console natively even.
This then points to the discussion on whether Grand Theft Auto VI might be released without 60 frames per second support. The conversation points at variables like the XBOX Series S which likely won’t offer that performance output. Whilst other counters to the argument is that PlayStation 5 Pro might still manage to reach that threshold for the refresh rate.
On base XBOX or PlayStation, raytracing hinders performance; normally inserting the game into 30hz territory. So for PlayStation 5 Pro is it possible? Well, Digital Foundry has its doubts still. In 2024, it was said likely not. “The PS5 Pro uses the same CPU as the PS5 and it would be extremely challenging to hit 60fps if the base PS5 version is targeting 30fps. This isn’t a GPU problem, it’s a CPU problem.”
Richard Leadbetter continues by expressing the chances are certainly not in favor for original PlayStation 5 hardware if attempting to target 60 FPS. “Of course, all bets are off if Rockstar is targeting 60fps on the standard PS5.” You can read the full report by heading here.
Are you expecting Grand Theft Auto VI to release with 60hz support or no?
Grand Theft Auto VI releases for XBOX Series X|S & PlayStation 5 on November 19, 2026.
Source: Digital Foundry
