BREAKING: GTA 6 in "active development" confirms Rockstar – get hyped!
GTA 6 is set to be the first truly next-gen open world game and, with its release date now speculated to be in 2024, developers Rockstar are going to have plenty of time to harness the power on tap in the PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles.
And that's really exciting as if GTA 6 does make full use of the hardware, software and features that both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X deliver, I think that we're going to be faced with a truly 10/10 game that changes the industry for ever.
And here's why GTA 6 having two cities on its in-game map would also help make it a 10/10 game for me.
Here's the 3 things I'm hoping GTA 6 does to truly tap into the power of the next-gen consoles and, in my opinion, if it does so then it will be well on its way to being one of the best games ever made.
1. Fully utilise RDNA 2 to deliver insane graphics
Both PS5 and Xbox Series X are built on AMD's RDNA 2 graphics architecture, and that means that Rockstar will have advanced graphical features available to them such as DirectX Raytracing, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback and Variable Rate Shading.
In layman's terms these graphical features, if utilised by Rockstar, would allow the game maker to make the in-game world of GTA 6 look orders of magnitude better than anything we've seen to date, with levels of realism in terms of character models, textures, lighting and particle effects taken to an all-new level.
Hopefully we're going to be able to get stuck in to truly insane car chases with gun play, explosions and multiple highly detailed environments lit realistically with ray traced lighting. It would be jaw-dropping if Rockstar can deliver!
For a more detailed breakdown of the next-gen graphics that could be coming to Grand Theft Auto 6 check out T3's graphics analysis feature.
2. Exploit M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe to deliver rapid loading
Playing GTA V on console was a torturous experience at times due to the creaking, old-fashioned, hard disc drives (HDD) the game had to load off. This also affected the draw distance in the game as well as the amount of assets displayed at one time (things like NPCs and vehicles). It also massively restricted how quickly assets could load in-game, leading to pop-in textures and models, things that shattered immersion.
Now, though, both the PS5 and Xbox Series X are equipped with state-of-the-art M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid state storage (SSD) drives that offer read and write speeds that are orders of magnitude faster than what was offered even on SSDs from a few years back, let alone snail-pace HDDs.
This means that if Rockstar do fully exploit the speed and performance capabilities of NVMe, GTA 6 is going to be able to have larger in-game worlds with bigger draw distances and far more assets on screen at any one time. The game will also load much faster and transitions will be handled smoothly, too.
We should be able to get used to properly populated urban cities filled with realistic amounts of people and vehicles and, maybe just maybe, have the ability to drive (or fly!) between cities in the game, with simulator levels of immersion.
3. Harness cloud infrastructure to deliver online awesomeness
Microsoft now has the best cloud gaming infrastructure in the world. It's so good in fact that Sony has actually made a deal to use it for its own PlayStation Spartacus cloud gaming / Netflix-for-games streaming service.
Both PlayStation and Xbox also have really strong online multiplayer gaming infrastructures in place, as well as very slick digital stores. And, in my mind, GTA 6 could really make use of these systems on PS5 and Xbox Series X to deliver an online connected world with brilliant multiplayer and seamless store and DLC opportunities.
To date I've not seen a good ecommerce system attached to a game, so if there was a seamless way I could buy, say, new vehicles, weapons or houses for my character to use in GTA 6, then that would absolutely be a boon to me. Equally, if I could play GTA 6 remotely via the cloud and online in a way that truly feels next-gen, then Rockstar would have my money so fast my wallet would likely set on fire.
