10 interesting things we spotted in the GTA 6 trailer
It’s here ahead of schedule, so let’s dig in.
Because it’s just been that kind of year, GTA 6’s first trailer has now arrived, with Rockstar having had to abandon its premiere plans thanks to (yup, you guessed it) a leak.
If you’ve yet to see the trailer for the first time you can check it out by clicking play on the video we’ve helpfully weaved into this piece about its sudden arrival.
Now, as we’ve previously said, anything that looks, sounds, or smells vaguely like the next entry in the GTA series, a video game that could well end up setting fire to existing sales records and will definitely birth at least 20 insufferable fan Twitter accounts must be examined with a microscope. After all, who knows what kinds of shocking secrets about the game could be hidden within it?
So, we’ve put on our trench coat and fedora for realsies this time to find 10 interesting things you might not have fully considered the potential implications of yet in GTA 6’s first trailer.
1. The not quite TikTok/Instagram
One of the big questions we had in our discussion of what we might want from GTA 6 was how it would handle parodying the newer social media platforms that have taken over our lives and influencer culture in general. After all, Facebook was still the main thing being lampooned during GTA 5 (remember that mission that sees you bomb a keynote speech).
Several times during the trailer, we start to get our answer, mainly via a GTA-ised version of TikTok being used to showcase some of the wild stuff you might see happening if you take a stroll around Vice City and its surroundings. There’s also what very much looks like an account handle for an Instagram parody a little bit further on in the trailer, when we get a glimpse of what looks to be a car culture/lifestyle-focused brand called “High Rollerz Lifestyle”.
Now all we need is a mission about two YouTubers deciding to take each other on in a terrible boxing match.
2. The Lowriders
Another thing we’ve been wondering is just how much of the oodles of content added to GTA Online over the past decade would make it into GTA 6 on release. The good news is that I didn’t spot any Oppressors flying across the Florida skies, but some other DLC vehicles are definitely present.
The main ones I spotted were the lowriders that pop up just before the 30 second mark of the trailer, one of which is looks like a custom ‘donk’ iteration of an old school sedan, exactly the kind of thing you could create at Benny's Original Motor Works following online’s Lowriders update. There are also plenty of DLC cars shown off in a later shot of Vice City's famous facsimile of Ocean Drive.
3. Starting off in the pen
At the beginning of the trailer, we see Lucia, the female half of the Bonnie and Clyde-style duo that the game’s plot revolves around talking to what seems likely to be a parole officer or counsellor while dressed in a typical orange prison garb.
The word “Inmate” is even emblazoned on the back, just in case you had any doubts. So, it seems like her story could well begin with a release or escape from the big house, allowing her to start anew following the “bad luck” that she identifies as having landed her in handcuffs. If so, then who doesn’t love the old ‘ex-prisoner/street rat granted a chance to forge a new identity’ narrative. If we’re lucky, maybe we’re in for an even more in-depth facsimile of Franklin’s arc in GTA 5.
4. The Everglades
Given that GTA 5’s version of San Andreas included plenty of upstate countryside in the form of Blaine County, it’s not that surprising that GTA 6’s map looks to expand a good way beyond the sun-kissed urban sprawl of Vice City itself. However, the little looks we do get of the game’s version of the Floridian Everglades are definitely worth thinking about.
If you were hoping to go crocodile hunting aboard a fan boat in your spare time, you’re in luck, as both are definitely in the game. So, hopefully we get to see the area used to its full potential via some interesting missions or a more in-depth hunting experience than the one briefly offered in GTA 5.
5. The moving not-quite Super Yachts
I called it. Big boats.
Remember GTA Online’s Galaxy Super Yacht, which served mainly as a home on the water, and had to be moved via a menu, rather than being sailed in real time? Well, at a couple of different points - one just after the 30 second mark and the other just a few seconds later - we get long shots of the environment from above that show what look like fairly beefy yachts being sailed like regular vehicles.
While these look a good bit smaller than the Online Super Yacht, they’re also a lot closer to it than the smaller Dinka Marquis - the luxury sailing boat you can drive around in a lot of the recent GTA entries. Bourgeois piracy, here we come!
6. The Graphics
Surprise surprise, GTA 6 looks very good, with the trailer suggesting that it’ll wring a lot out of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S hardware it’ll be arriving on at release. Outside of the beautifully-rendered environments and realistic-looking character models, it looks like there could well be some ray-tracing at play throughout the trailer, especially during the sequence near the start that shows Lucia bathed in light spewing in through the window of wherever she’s being kept.
While graphics are far from the be all and end all when it comes to game quality, it’s cool to see that Rockstar looks to be trying to outdo even the dazzling Red Dead Redemption 2 in the visuals department.
7. The Clubs/Plane with a Banner
Ok, so I’m going to lump together a few things here. We see both a GTA Online-style nightclub and the typical strip club that’s ever present in a GTA game in the trailer. But I want to draw your attention to the plane towing a banner that we see fly over the city at around the 15 second mark of the trailer.
While I can’t quite make out what it says, the banner being towed looks to be a similar shade of purple to the banner we later see in the strip club advertising “Make it rain Mondays”. Take this with a huge grain of salt for now, but my first thought was the promo missions from GTA Online’s After Hours DLC, some of which can see you tasked with flying a blimp bearing your club’s logo around the city in order to improve interest in it. Might we be able to buy a strip or nightclub as a property in GTA 6 and take on jobs like flying that banner plane around as property management gigs? We’ll have to see.
8. Vice Vinyl/The Custom Shop Logo
Car customisation was one of the headline additions GTA 5 brought to the table, with its Los Santos Customs shops likely managing to murder my dreams of another entry in the Midnight Club series. Obviously, LS Customs is a San Andreas thing, but the trailer could well have given us some hints at where we’ll be going to pimp our rides instead.
Plastered on the windows of some of the custom cars seen throughout the trailer are a couple of could-be custom shop logos. One is an advertisement for something called “Vice Vinyl” seen on the rear window of a pickup truck just after the 50 second mark. Maybe this could hint at the game featuring a more advanced version of the car liveries available for many of GTA Online’s later DLC cars? Then, there’s the partially-obscured text on the rear windshield of a green car shown during the ‘High Rollerz’ shot, which also looks to shout out the name of a customs shop, possibly something like Ride Out Customs.
9. Thrillbilly Mud Club
For those who prefer their motoring action to be of the offroad variety, it looks like the Thrillbilly Mud Club will offer it. By the brief glimpse of monster trucks, quad bikes and pickups sitting next to a stand with spectators on it just before the trailer’s one minute mark, this looks to be an all-terrain racing championship or extreme sports-style event that you’ll likely be able to take part in in some fashion.
I’d get ready for plenty of energy drink advert parodies and maybe a touching tribute to Ken Block hidden among the mayhem.
10. The Bit in Spanish
Yup, for this final bit, we’re getting our GCSE language training out. Just after the one minute mark, there’s a shot from a news channel called Mega Nocticias of a convict. The Spanish text on screen roughly translates as “Confession written in tattoo ink. A tattoo on him that betrayed himself, key in the conviction of a man from Leonida.” So, we now know that GTA still has a sense of humour, just in case the other wacky characters you can find across Leonida - which looks to be the name GTA 6 gives to the state of Florida - shown off in the trailer didn’t already convey that.
Plus, the existence of the channel also shows how prevalent Latin culture, a demographic reflected in the game's main character, will be in GTA 6, much like it is in real world Florida and the wider southern US.So, that’s all we’ve spotted so far. Have you spotted anything else cool in GTA 6’s first trailer and what did you think of it? Make sure to let us know!