I went back and rewatched the GTA V reveal trailer the other night, just to see how it holds up next to what Rockstar has shown for GTA 6. It is a strange thing to do, comparing a game from 2013 to one that has not even launched yet, but it puts things in perspective. GTA V looked incredible at the time. Watching it now, right after GTA 6 footage, the gap is obvious in a way that says a lot about how far Rockstar has pushed things in a decade.

This is not really a review, since GTA 6 is not out yet and nobody outside Rockstar has played the full game. It is more of a stacked comparison, based on what has actually been confirmed or clearly shown, city against city and system against system.

Los Santos Versus Vice City

GTA V’s Los Santos was built as a fictional take on Los Angeles, and it worked because the tone matched the setting. Sun bleached streets, freeways, and a general sense of sprawl fit the satire Rockstar was going for. Vice City, or rather Leonida as the wider state is called this time, leans into a completely different mood. Humidity, storms, swampland, and a coastline that actually seems to matter to how the world behaves give it a different identity from the start.

Rockstar has called the new map its largest yet, though it has stopped short of giving exact numbers. Based on what has been shown, the state appears to include far more variety outside the main city than GTA V’s countryside did, with small towns and rural stretches that look like they were designed to be more than just filler between missions.

Character Design and Animation

GTA V’s characters looked sharp for their time, but by today’s standards the facial animation and background NPC variety show their age. GTA 6 appears to fix a lot of that. Background characters have distinct clothing, body types, and individual animations rather than repeating the same handful of models across a crowd. Small details like visible skin texture, freckles, and even subtle blemishes on main characters suggest a level of facial detail GTA V never attempted.

The two confirmed protagonists, Lucia and Jason, also mark a shift in how Rockstar is telling its story. GTA V split its narrative across three separate playable characters with mostly separate lives. GTA 6 instead centers on a single partnership, which changes the pacing of how the story is likely to unfold.

Vehicles and Physics

Driving in GTA V felt solid for its era but fairly simple underneath the surface. Cars handled predictably, and outside of Rockstar’s later updates, there was not much depth to how vehicles reacted to damage or terrain. GTA 6 footage shows visible suspension response, seats that shift under weight, and motorcycles that appear to compress differently depending on rider weight. None of that was present in GTA V at launch.

Weapon and vehicle customization also look deeper this time, based on attachments and cosmetic options shown in trailer footage. GTA V eventually added extensive customization through updates, but GTA 6 appears to be launching with more of that built in from the start rather than adding it later.

World Reactivity

This is probably the biggest gap between the two games. GTA V’s world was detailed but mostly static outside of scripted events. Weather changed, but it rarely felt like it affected anything beyond visibility. GTA 6 footage shows storm systems that look like they play a real role in how the world behaves, along with smaller touches like sand sticking to feet on a beach or lighting that changes realistically as animals move through a scene.

Traffic and pedestrian behavior also look more advanced. GTA V’s NPCs mostly followed simple patterns, reacting the same way to most situations. Footage from GTA 6 shows drivers slowing down for accidents and reacting individually to what is happening around them, which lines up with patents Rockstar has filed related to more advanced pathfinding and behavior systems.

Scale and Population

Numbers are hard to verify this early, but rough estimates suggest GTA 6’s first trailer alone featured well over 600 individual NPCs, compared to a much smaller number in GTA V’s original reveal. That does not confirm anything about the final game’s total population, but it does suggest Rockstar built these early trailers with a much bigger cast of background characters than it needed to just to sell the game.

What Has Not Changed

Despite all the technical jumps, the tone still feels like a Rockstar game. Parody brands are still part of the world. Dark humor is still woven into the satire. The map still seems built around the idea of driving somewhere and stumbling into something unexpected along the way. If GTA 6 had thrown all of that out in favor of pure realism, it would not really feel like a sequel. From the footage so far, that balance seems intact.

Setting Realistic Expectations

It is worth remembering that trailers are made to impress, and not everything shown always makes it into the final game exactly as advertised. GTA V’s reveal trailer promised a lot too, and while most of it held up, there is always a gap between marketing footage and the finished product. The smart approach is to treat everything here as a strong indication of direction, not a guarantee of the final experience.

Still, based purely on what has been confirmed and shown so far, GTA 6 looks like a genuine step forward rather than a reskin of the same formula. Whether that translates into a better game overall will only be clear once people are actually able to play it.

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