I did note a couple of close-up interiors that had some shadow flicker, but like ambient occlusion, Rockstar could also be using screen space shadows to help ground all small and distant objects within each of the plentiful shots. The results are quite staggering, with almost no signs of flicker, dithering, or issues in the micro and macro details. These are bolstered further with a robust ambient occlusion method, which may be a byproduct of the ray-traced shadows and improved Screen Space solution, such as HBAO or even a mixture of the two. These create that strong CGI look that the trailer has from all objects within the scene, with characters self-shadowing on their arms, faces and interiors. As per the GTA 5 update, these look to mix with cascaded shadow maps (CSM) which allow a long range of lower quality shadows to be mixed with the pixel-precise ray-traced ones. The trailer footage has signs of contact hardening and umbra and penumbra feathering from both the sun and electric light sources. The shadow solution is likely using a similar mixed method of ray-traced objects that is simply stunning.
And then anything else not within this data set is picked up via SSR or old-fashioned cube-maps. Meaning we get all included objects within this BVH reflected via a lower level of detail proxy. This is then traversed via the bounding volume hierarchy as rays are cast into the scene. The balance here is likely that a limited subset of the scene’s geometry is built into a reflectance dataset. These also appear to mix and/or fall back to standard screen space reflections, and you can see evidence of disocclusion artifacts during some shots, as the object is occluded or offscreen. As the car and the girl’s green dress move in the scene, the level of reflectance changes with the angle of incidence and lighting. This is also a great area to show the level of Fresnel used across surfaces. We can see a high level of material quality and reflectance across wet streets, polished cars, and even carbon fibre weave. Car wing mirrors reflect the bodywork and flying flamingos, in a nod to Miami Vice. Ray-traced shadows and reflections appear prominently within the trailer, as we see self-reflections of raucous crowds on those pearlescent paint jobs, and bikini-clad girls in pools (although planar reflections are a possibility here). From a visual stability and clarity perspective, I have no concerns here and have long held the view that 1440p to 1620p is the perfect balance of pixel quality versus quantity.īut enough on the least interesting aspects of the engine, what about those brand-new features? As mentioned, this is an upgraded version of the Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA 5 engine, and the current-generation updates of those games have already given us a taste of what to expect. Looking at the trailer, the internal base resolution appears to be 2560x1440 and is likely using a reconstruction solution within the engine to produce a 3840x2160 output. The Future’s So Bright, We Gotta Wear Shades. Regardless, it’s far too soon to worry about performance yet, especially when we have so much beauty on offer, so let’s get into it. The footage was capped at 30fps, but I would almost guarantee this will be a 30fps target for all three current consoles, which is not a bad thing at all and I think the results reflect that this was the correct choice. The same Rockstar Advanced Game Engine is running it, although it will likely be a significantly enhanced and evolved version that will be designed around the capabilities of the current generation.Īs before, the new GTA will not initially launch on PC, and no date was provided for when that will happen, so we can at least be confident that we are looking at real time PS5/Series X gameplay. It’s been in development since at least 2018 when Red Dead Redemption 2 launched, but possibly longer. But GTA 6 will also ship on Xbox Series X and Series S, as confirmed by Rockstar when the trailer launched.
The trailer is a development work-in-progress build, likely running on the PlayStation 5. Today we finally have a glimpse of just what those shiny new consoles we purchased are capable of, and it did not disappoint.įirst some basics on what we saw and the platforms that GTA 6 will launch on, come 2025. Three years in we have been bereft of a full Rockstar game built from the ground up for the latest generation of console hardware. Simply look at the top ten sales for the past 10 years and GTA 5 has dominated the charts ever since it launched, two full console generations ago. There’s no argument that Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular franchises on earth.