GTA 6 Exclusive Preview

Grand Theft Auto 6. The most anticipated game of at least the last decade. And somehow, I'm sitting down at Rockstar North, about to watch co-studio head Rob Nelson play through 30 minutes of the game. It's a privilege only a handful of people have been granted. Holy shit. HOLY SHIT .

Half an hour later, it's crystal clear that this game will occupy every waking minute of my existence when it finally arrives this November. If you need to know just one thing about GTA 6, it's that you're going to spend so much time in it you'll probably be subject to Leonida taxes. When IGN was invited to enter the secretive halls of Rockstar North for an exclusive look, I suspected that the slice of gameplay would be designed to show off just how much GTA has grown and evolved since its last iteration launched 13 years ago. Even knowing that, the scope of what I saw is even more colossal than I was prepared for. Combined, the gameplay and Nelson revealed a new era for the series, one where everything that made us all fall in love with a life of crime is still there, but now it's set in a world so rich and ready to explore that it's not just a game; it's a parallel universe.

After watching the latest TV episode-length “Extended Look” ahead of its Netflix debut - can you imagine how many times I've nearly combusted keeping that secret from family and friends? - and another 30 minutes of live gameplay, I knew GTA 6 is going to be a multi-layered world of crime, exploration, side quests, and secrets that's more connected and finely tuned than any other game in the series. For a start, the setting of Leonida instantly feels more densely populated than anything we've seen before. Streets are full of NPCs hanging out, making conversation, and they're all ready to interact with Lucia or Jason in different ways. A quick peek at the giant map revealed an almost overwhelming amount of icons for stores, opportunities, and activities, and the trailers have given us a glimpse of even more. It's clear that this is going to be a playground that rewards exploration and that unguided adventures are now as much a part of the GTA 6 experience as the story, rather than just a clever backdrop. You can swap between the two protagonists at almost any point or explore the world together while you manage their stats with food buffs and workouts.

The biggest part of all the trailers so far has been Jason and Lucia and the connection between them. It's a real Bonnie and Clyde vibe—you're playing as a couple, something that makes total sense given Rockstar's appetite for telling stories with emotional stakes. As well as jumping between the two characters GTA 5-style, you can spend time roaming and robbing the world together as a couple, which strengthens your relationship. The more time you hang out together, the better their bond. Can you force them to break up if you solely play as Lucia and treat Jason like human wallpaper? No. There's no dumping your significant other, but you can expect the type of affinity you build to be reflected in the story. Additionally, being the perfect couple doesn't provide any gameplay benefits, and so there’s no need to put extra effort into the relationship if you don’t want to. It’s completely optional; they’ll be there for each other no matter if you regularly interact with the couple mechanics or ignore them completely.

"They will remain partners in crime,” Nelson confirms. “You will always have the benefit of working together and having each other's back – whether they're romantically close or not doesn't change that. They will still work together. It's really about what you want for them, their story, and how it plays out. Whether you've nurtured the relationship or not will definitely have a bearing on how their story plays out."

As well as potential variations to how the story can play out, Jason and Lucia being a couple does build into GTA 6’s gameplay systems, too. In the middle of a crime spree, you can go your separate ways to avoid police who are looking for a couple, or if one character gets into trouble with a random NPC, the other will back them up. But the relationship shows up in the little ways as well as the big. Checking in via text, holding hands, shopping, holding the door open—it all adds up.

When Nelson first loaded up his save for the demo, we were transported to a downtown part of Leonida. Our stroll around there was anything but casual. The streets, traffic, and sheer number of NPCs of all shapes and sizes - and their penchant for screaming curses at you - hit like a slap in the face. It's enough to make you feel like an Amish kid on Rumspringer in New York. You overhear chunks of pedestrian dialogue that sound like real conversations, there are stores and bodegas and pawn shops all ripe for the robbing, and it's all rendered in such detail that your eyes overload for a few seconds.

The life this world seems to have isn't just noise and style either. NPCs now have a wide range of tolerance for any BS you may or may not throw their way. Taunt them, and they could act offended or even attack you. Pull a gun, and they could cower or choose to escalate. Get into an altercation, and maybe you'll attract the attention of an entirely different group of people that want to get all up in your business.

"I think in previous GTA games you were a bit all-powerful,” says Nelson. “You were the only one with an invisible arsenal hidden away. Apart from the police, everyone would run in terror from you if you started acting out. This world in GTA 6 is not like that."

To help you navigate this new, complex ecosystem, the way you interact with the world has evolved since GTA 5. Building on the control system introduced in Red Dead Redemption 2, using L2 doesn't immediately aim your gun if it's holstered. Instead, you can use it to talk to or taunt characters you meet. According to Nelson, this small system required a huge technical effort across animators, designers, and dialogue writers. It appears as if it’s been worth the hassle, though, as it made the interactions I saw feel more organic and authentic than the comparatively stilted NPC back-and-forths you often see in other open-world games.

After an unfortunate run-in with a douchebag of a guy and some trigger-happy women who happened to be jogging past, we got confirmation that the Wanted level mechanic is still alive and well in GTA 6. If you're spotted committing a crime, police will respond and, depending on the situation, will get a description of you, your car, your clothing, and whether or not you're walking around as a couple or separately. Changing any of those things can aid your escape, as can swapping your car for an on-foot sprint through the city. After the douchebag incident, Lucia got away on one of those scooters that lie around the streets in big cities. A smart move, considering that making a getaway behind the wheel presents more issues than players have experienced before.

"The streets in this game are narrower and more realistic in terms of scale. Which, in addition to all the density of the traffic on the roads, makes driving slightly more challenging and requires a bit of skill," warns Nelson.

Oh, and not only is the driving tougher, even just stealing the car has evolved to be a more nuanced process too. It's still the automobile acquisition thrill that we know and love; it's just deeper than a simple smash and grab.

"We have put some layers of stratification into the vehicles," explains Nelson. "Previously, you could just press triangle to automatically hotwire and steal any vehicle that you wanted and take off. We felt like that left a lot of potential gameplay on the table in terms of progression and decision-making for players. So now, you start off the game and there are certain parked cars that are not accessible to you until you get a bit further along with the story and you acquire certain tools to get into them, but you can always carjack any driver you see."

“I think it gives all the vehicles more meaning, and you need to pay attention to what you’re doing a bit more,” he adds.

Now different makes and models will need different approaches; a fancy car might come equipped with an electronic lock and require a key cloner to get into. And the danger doesn’t stop once you’re inside either. An advanced GPS tracking system may be installed that forces you to drive fast, Speed style, to avoid getting caught. To help, both Jason and Lucia have a scanning app installed on their phones that will reveal if the car you’re looking at is equipped with such technology, as well as how much cash you can make selling it or the cost of registering it for yourself.

Whether you're boosting cars or murdering NPCs, Jason and Lucia have a Criminal Profile as well as a Wanted level. A new mechanic for the Grand Theft Auto series, it changes depending on your interactions in the world. Think of it as an upgraded version of Red Dead Redemption 2’s Honor system. There, Arthur Morgan could go on a killing spree and then work his way back to sainthood by greeting everyone he met; here it's more nuanced. Get into a shootout during a robbery or fire back at an aggressor? A reasonable response. Escalate a situation that you could have walked away from without violence? That's going to change your profile. Despite this new profiling system, Nelson was at pains to point out that there's no correct way to play - Grand Theft Auto is still all about committing crimes.

"There isn’t a right or wrong way to play this game, but consistent actions may have an impact in terms of how the world reacts to you and how the narrative plays out," explains Nelson.

"In this game, you are playing as criminals on the run, but the narrative is such that it makes most sense for them to do what they need to do while not drawing unnecessary attention (even though sometimes that happens)."

As Nelson played, it was not just major moments of violence that dynamically altered the profile; smaller everyday actions seemed to make a difference, too. Throwing trash in a garbage can seemed to help, and according to Nelson, feeding animals will be another option.

When you need somewhere to relax after a hard day of building your Criminal Profile, Jason and Lucia have access to a new upgraded type of safehouse, where you can grab a drink from the fridge, give yourself a new hairstyle, and just do couple shit.

"The safehouses in this game are probably closer to the camps in RDR2 than they are to safehouses in any GTA game before in terms of how interactive they are and how much they feel like your home," says Nelson.

Don't go thinking the Grand Theft Auto brand has gone too domestic bliss, though; it seems like the weird and wonderful satire you expect from Rockstar is all present and correct. NPCs still shout unhinged things about mommy issues and peeing on you for cash; there's an attorney that works out of a dumpster for pills, and there are more of those deliciously dark TV ads than ever before. Social media returns in a big way, and even if Jason and Lucia aren't posting themselves - they're a couple on the run, after all - they still get to lurk and doomscroll like the rest of us.

"That’s a question a lot of people ask: how do you deal with satire in today’s world? I think there’s always stuff to satirize. As long as humans are humans, other humans will figure out ways to satirize what we do," says Nelson. It's clearly a tough balancing act, though, and he points out that unlike a TV show that comes out every week, the targets the game chooses have to stay relevant through a long development cycle.

"We have to be careful that what we’re choosing to satirize is not going to feel dated in a weird way. I think those broader things are OK to satirize, but very specific political issues or memes will date fast. Even the way our characters speak, we think about it a lot so that they're not using extremely contemporary slang. Even though our characters are a certain age, they need to feel somewhat timeless."

So aside from a need to avoid referencing outdated memes or dusty slang, what have those 13 years since the last game – and the new technology that came with them – meant for Grand Theft Auto?

"The density of GTA 6 has been an exciting challenge, but that's also part of the reason why our team has doubled in size," says Nelson.

"One of the coolest things about this game being developed from the ground up on this generation of hardware is taking advantage of all the memory that we have on the latest generation of consoles, combined with our teams’ experience doing this for so long together."

If you had told me Rockstar had spent 13 years on the mo-cap alone, I wouldn't immediately call bullshit. It's the best I've ever seen a game look on PS5, and it could hold its own against most high-end PC games too. Everything from the facial expressions to the sway of Lucia's walk – genuinely, one of the first things I noticed about the character is the way she moves realistically for her height and build, rather than like a male character with boobs attached – to the lights on a boat traveling through the sea around Leonida, actual realistic-looking hair, and the skyline and sun glinting off cars as they race by.

It’s notable that, for its very first gameplay presentation to the press, what Rockstar chose to show wasn’t a dramatic set piece; it was a slice of the world. It was a ballsy move that showed an eagerness to signal to players just how much awaits them in this new, bigger, and better criminal playground.

"I just really wanted to show that, in addition to what we hope will be a very compelling story for people to get involved in, there is a very deep, vast, incredible world to explore and get involved with as these two characters – apart, or together, however you want to play it,” says Nelson. “And finally, even though there are some new systems at play, it's still very much Grand Theft Auto."

That bit at the end of the latest trailer, when Jason's friend Cal Hampton is talking about appreciating the present? I can't help feeling that it reflects how Rockstar wants us all to play in its new open world, exploring, getting sidetracked, discovering things for ourselves, enjoying life in this fully-realised digital city, and not just burning through the story like it's a race. That's confidence and a sign that the team sees the Leonida they've built as the crown jewel of GTA 6. The biggest takeaway? Those streets are going to be home to the best type of chaos.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released on November 19.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.