Written by Andy….

Rockstar has finally given us a much longer look at Grand Theft Auto VI, and after years of trailers, screenshots, rumours and people analysing individual palm trees like they’re part of a criminal investigation, it was good to actually sit down and see a proper chunk of the game.

The new extended presentation runs for around 26 minutes and gives us our clearest look yet at Jason, Lucia, Vice City and the wider state of Leonida.

Rockstar says the footage was captured in-game on PlayStation 5, and while there are obviously plenty of cinematic moments mixed in, this feels much closer to seeing what GTA VI is actually going to be rather than another carefully cut two-minute trailer, and frankly it looks fantastic.

On a personal note however, I’m quite glad I already pay for Netflix.

Had I taken out a subscription purely to watch this, I think I’d have been a little miffed. Not because the footage was bad, far from it, but paying specifically to watch what is effectively an extended game showcase would have felt a bit strange.

Thankfully, Netflix is already siphoning money out of my bank account every month, so no harm done, i would link the video here, but being age restricted, it will just re-direct you, however the official video is now readily available on youtube.

Jason and Lucia finally get some breathing room

One of the big positives I took away from the extended look is that we finally get to spend a bit more time with Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos.

We’ve obviously seen plenty of them already, but this presentation gives us a better feel for their relationship and, more importantly, how that relationship is going to work within the game itself.

There are robberies, shootouts, police chases and plenty of the usual GTA chaos, but there are also quieter moments between the pair.

They don’t simply feel like two characters who happen to share the same story. Rockstar seems to be putting their relationship right at the centre of GTA VI.

We also get to see the pair operating both together and separately.

At various points Jason and Lucia work alongside each other during missions, while elsewhere the footage shows them going about their own business before switching between the two.

It immediately brings back memories of GTA V’s multiple-protagonist system, although this time the connection between the two characters looks considerably more important to the story.

Vice City looks enormous

Of course, Rockstar could have shown Jason and Lucia arguing over whose turn it was to put the bins out and people would still have been staring at the background trying to work out how big the map is.

And there is a lot to look at.

Vice City looks absolutely packed, in a good way.

We see beaches, nightlife, residential areas, highways, waterways and plenty of countryside beyond the city itself, with Rockstar’s version of Leonida seemingly offering a lot more variety than simply neon lights and skyscrapers.

There are also plenty of activities happening outside the main story.

Swimming, scuba diving, kayaking, airboats, basketball, parachuting and plenty more make appearances alongside the usual collection of cars, motorbikes and boats.

How much of this ends up being meaningful gameplay rather than something you try once and never touch again remains to be seen, but the world certainly doesn’t look short of things to do.

Combat gets a much better showing

The extended footage also gives us a clearer look at combat.

There are several traditional third-person shootouts, characters moving between cover and some much larger encounters involving vehicles and police.

One sequence in particular sees Lucia driving while Jason fires at pursuing police, and it gives a decent indication of how Rockstar might make use of the two-character setup during missions.

There also appears to be a noticeable step up in animation and environmental detail.

Cars take a battering, characters react more naturally to what is happening around them and the whole thing generally looks considerably more physical than GTA V.

Exactly how much of what we saw translates directly into the final gameplay experience is something we obviously won’t know until we get our hands on it.

But visually, there is a lot going on.

It still feels unmistakably GTA

Perhaps the most reassuring part of the whole presentation is that, underneath all the extra detail and technical improvements, this still looks like Grand Theft Auto.

The fake adverts are there.

The ridiculous television broadcasts are there.

The social satire is there.

And within minutes somebody is inevitably being chased down a motorway by what appears to be half of the Leonida police department.

Rockstar hasn’t reinvented GTA into something unrecognisable.

Instead, it looks like they’ve taken the foundations of GTA V and pushed almost every part of them considerably further than i think we thought they could.

November suddenly doesn’t feel that far away

Grand Theft Auto VI is currently scheduled to release on 19 November 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

There are still plenty of questions.

We still don’t really know how deep some of these systems go, how progression will work across the two protagonists or what Rockstar has planned for the future of GTA Online.

But after years of waiting, this extended look has finally given us something substantial to judge, and i can confidently say it is one of, if not the best looking game i have ever seen.

For me, that was probably the biggest takeaway.

GTA VI has spent so long being this almost mythical game lurking somewhere in Rockstar’s offices that it has sometimes felt more like an internet event than something we are actually going to play.

After watching 26 minutes of it in action, it finally feels like a real game.

And thankfully, I didn’t have to take out another subscription to watch it.