A former developer at Rockstar has reacted to the GTA 6 trailer, bigging up the animation work and graphical improvements compared to the developer’s previous games.
Mike York worked as an animator at Rockstar New England for six years, helping to build GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 before leaving the company in 2017, so his opinion comes with a fair amount of authority.
In a video published to his YouTube channel, York runs through the GTA 6 trailer, pausing to discuss the increased density and detail within Leonida, Rockstar’s version of the state of Florida, and the neon-soaked streets of Vice City, Rockstar’s take on Miami.
According to York, what we see in the trailer reflects what fans can expect to experience when GTA 6 eventually comes out at some point in 2025.
“This is an in-game cutscene,” York said of the trailer. “A lot of the games you see are done with cinematics, and they cut to a scene and it’s not all in-game. It’s kind of pre-rendered and you see it. But everything you see in a GTA game is all done in-game. Every single cutscene. If you see that building way in the back, you can go to that building, you can climb it, you can jump off it. This game is very elaborate. That’s why it takes them so long to make.”
York goes on to talk about Rockstar staff working on hundreds of thousands of animations for previous games, a momentous task done in order to accommodate the player’s every whim.
Pointing to the GTA 6 trailer’s clip of a Vice City beach, York called it full of people all performing unique actions to make the virtual world feel alive. This is a Rockstar trademark only possible with hundreds of thousands of animations, York insisted.
Then, discussing the life-life nature of NPCs, some of which have ultra-realistic hair and even pockmarks on skin, York said he was impressed with GTA 6’s graphics.
“I’m really impressed with how far they’re bringing the graphics in-game,” he said. “A lot of times you see a cinematic - this is not that. When you play this game it’s really going to look like this. It’s going to look just like this. It’s going to be incredible. I can’t wait.
“Because the artists over there really know how to push the consoles and the hardware to the limits with their level of detail (LODs).”
York calls the GTA 6 trailer’s much-discussed bikini-clad woman an NPC (there is a fair bit of debate about this character’s identity, with some believing it’s protagonist Lucia with a different hairstyle and outfit), and trumpets the graphical quality Rockstar has applied to the people who populate the world.
The GTA 6 trailer was awaited with bated breath from the gaming industry and finally arrived with plenty of classic Rockstar satire. The 90-second trailer featured a ton of intricate details (here are 99 things IGN spotted) and plenty of references to wild and wacky real life events too. It also showed off GTA 6's dual protagonists, Jason and Lucia, and the internet has already grown obsessed over the latter. The GTA 6 trailer has already surpassed predecessor Grand Theft Auto 5's reveal trailer's views, reaching 101 million views in less than two days. It’s now the most-viewed video game reveal on YouTube over a 24 hour period, and the most viewed non-music video on YouTube in 24 hours.
While GTA 6 was revealed alongside a 2025 release date for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, PC players were left frustrated, though not necessarily surprised, that their platform was left off the list.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
