GTA 6 probably won’t look as good as the trailers, former dev admits

(Credit: Rockstar)

• 🤔 A former Rockstar developer who worked on GTA 6 has said that the game may not look quite like it does in the trailers when it’s finished

• 🫢 David O’Reilly, a former Rockstar environmental artist, has stated in an interview that the trailers are “madly polished” against what’s seen in the final game

• 🤷‍♂️ Moreover, everything about the game is curated for the trailer, and everything is still subject to change until the game’s final release

• 📆 GTA VI is still scheduled for release on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 in November 2026, after a couple of delays from Rockstar

A former Rockstar developer has admitted that GTA 6 may not look quite as good as it does in the trailers, casting doubt on the very high expectations fans have for the game’s graphics.

David O’Reilly, a former Rockstar environmental artist who has worked on titles including GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2 and on GTA 6, was interviewed by YouTuber Kiwi Talkz and said what’s seen in the trailer is a “madly polished” version of what will be seen in the game’s final release.

He elaborated by stating that “When you make a trailer, they look at where the camera’s going to be, and everything in that view is getting madly polished, whereas everything not in that view isn’t getting madly polished yet.”

Furthermore, “The whole world doesn’t look like that. You focus on the areas of the trailer, and that’s the projection of what the entire game is going to be like. That’s why you get differences in trailers and the final game. You can’t view that as, ‘That’s locked down now. That tree will be there when it releases.’ You can’t look at it like that.”

In essence, the trailer is as much a marketing tool as it is a showcase for the game, meaning Rockstar has likely picked the absolute best elements to show GTA 6 off, and it would therefore be unreasonable for fans to expect the entire game to look as it does in the handful of minutes’ worth of footage we’ve seen in Trailers 1 and 2 in months gone by.

Moreover, the objects, locations, and graphical levels seen aren’t finalized, as everything is still subject to change until the game’s final release, which is still scheduled for November 19, 2026.

This is why there is often a discrepancy between the game’s trailer and what players experience when they play it at home. This was the case in GTA V, for instance, as the graphics weren’t quite as polished, and the game still borrowed assets from GTA IV that went unused.

O’Reilly also stated that much of what we’ve seen in the GTA 6 trailers may have already changed, but of course, we won’t know until the game releases.

Up next: Razer Viper V4 Pro review: superior to the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike in almost every way

Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.