Grand Theft Auto 6 may not be coming out until May 2026, but Rockstar salved our disappointment with the release of Trailer 2, an action-packed mixture of cutscenes and gameplay. Despite being less than three minutes long, the trailer is packed with a huge amount of clues to the game’s current technical make-up, including its resolution and frame-rate figures, as well as a look at some of the graphical techniques that will define its overall look.
First, the basics: the trailer was released in 4K at 30fps with black bars – producing a rather odd 20:9 aspect ratio – with text at the end of the trailer confirming it was recorded on a base PS5 instead of the more powerful PS5 Pro. Internal resolution counts come out at 1440p, or 2560×1152 to be exact – that’s 80 percent of 1440p on the vertical axis. The trailer seems to be using a spatial upscaler, something like AMD’s first-generation FSR, with that characteristic curved look present in fine detail like distant text. This means image quality is a little soft, but makes it more believable that the game is actually running on a base PS5, bearing in mind the relatively realistic details and graphical effects elsewhere.
Despite ostensibly including “gameplay” segments, it’s clear that the majority of the trailer shows cutscenes, with only a handful of shots that resemble typical gameplay shots from earlier entries in the series. As such, Rockstar is free to add extra light sources – as you would in a film set – to ensure that characters, objects and environments all look their best. (You can see instances where character faces are lit from the front when the sun is behind them, for example.) The material work here is exceptional, but without seeing proper gameplay it’s hard to imagine that the game will look quite as realistic and detailed during moment-to-moment gameplay as it does during the scenes that play out in Trailer 2.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer 2 Tech Breakdown – Incredible Realism, Impressive RT, Astonishing Detail Watch on YouTube
While the entire trailer is exceptional in terms of its detail, it’s clear that the ray-traced global illumination (RTGI) is responsible for a lot of the game’s realistic look, which applies to both sunny Floridian scenes and perhaps more eye-catching scenes in low light.