Earlier today a now-deleted X account leaked the official GTA 6 reveal trailer, nearly a full day ahead of its scheduled premiere. I watched it about four times in its leaked format: very low-res and with "BUY $BTC" superimposed over the middle. I thought it looked pretty good even then, though I was as yet unprepared for how much arse it would feature.
When Rockstar quickly issued the official trailer, I watched it a further ten times or so to make the following observations. This one minute and thirty-one second artefact will be viewed billions of times in the coming days and weeks. Very many articles and videos will be written and filmed about it. Bizarre, arcane truths will be syphoned from it. Outlandish confirmations will be gleaned.
For now, here's just what I thought about it, and the things it seems pretty obvious it's trying to tell us.
[0:05] We meet protagonist Lucia
After some brief pink-drenched exterior shots of a prison we meet inmate Lucia. In her prison scrubs Lucia is questioned by a prison authority: "Do you know why you're here?". To which she replies, "Bad luck, I guess". That's our protagonist: fated to a life of crime, and brutally honest about it.
An interesting tonal shift for a GTA reveal trailer. GTA 5 opened with a pleasant collage of all the fun stuff Los Santos has at its disposal. GTA 4's opened with ominous footage of Liberty City's then remarkably lifelike urban cityscape. GTA 6's reveal trailer tells a different story. There's no use emphasising how advanced your engine tech or graphics are in 2023: this is a modern blockbuster videogame. It's basically a movie trailer.
[0:12] Vice City, goofiness, buildings we may or may not be able to enter
The camera pans over a busy urban beach. This is clearly Vice City (which is situated in the state of Leonida, according to Rockstar's official PR). A distant airborne marquee ad asks "why sixty-nine when you can Nine 1 Nine?" Presumably this is an ad for a company called Nine1Nine—maybe responsible for the production of masturbation aides? Whatever the case: non-subtle allusions to sexual acts confirmed. This is GTA, with all the goofiness that entails.
I have to confess, watching this five second interstitial shot of the cityscape, my main concern was whether all those apartment blocks look like buildings I will be able to enter and explore in the final game. Impossible to tell.
[0:19] There are airboats
After the tantalising pan of Vice City's skyline we get, by contrast, some yellow-hued footage of an airboat coursing along a clearing in some marshy wetlands. Airboats confirmed! Just in case you're wondering what they are, they're "flat-bottomed watercraft propelled by an air-craft type propeller" which are "commonly used for fishing, bowfishing, hunting and ecotourism" (thanks Wikipedia). Fishing probably confirmed? I don't know. Airboats confirmed, though. Birds confirmed too, obviously.
[0:22] Chill beach scene shows brand new dog breed and an amphibious helicopter
The next handful of seconds gives way to some shots of Vice City dwellers at play. The busy beach scene has speedboats, a utility truck with a trailer attached (trailers confirmed!) a helicopter and, to the right of the helicopter, a Helicopter That Can Land On Water, officially known as an amphibious helicopter. This scene also confirms… new breeds of dog! That tiny mousy looking thing is not among the seven breeds of dogs that appear in GTA 5.
[0:23] Some mild criminal infractions, some mood-setting streetscapes
Slightly less chill is the speedboat race depicted directly after this beach scene, where laws are almost certainly being broken. One should surely not speed in packs so close to container ships. Slightly less illegal, but still probably illegal, is the woman standing in a speeding convertible in the next scene. The road signs above point towards Kelly County - VCI Airport (airport confirmed) and via Catalan Boulevard, Stockyard and Downtown. Aside from the airport (there's an airport in GTA: Vice City) none of these destinations seem to directly reference anywhere specific from older depictions of VC.
The mood montage continues with a bonnet view drive down a busy suburban street, an interior shot of a crowded and salacious bar, a guy with dreads and ostentatious necklaces greeting his bro, and then, a gorgeous birds eye view of a fancy satellite neighbourhood (visible here: tennis courts, a luxury yacht).
It's the next scene that excites me: downtown Vice City, bespeckled in neon, lined with stunt-ready sports cars to rob at the press of a button—all very exciting. But it's the sheer density of the street life here that I love: check out the open air dining happening to the far left of the shot.
[0:34] There's a DJ
Then there's this DJ. DJs will be in GTA 6.
[0:36] The last moments of peace
Here's another one of those classic trailer shots that YouTubers (and let's be honest, PC gaming websites) dine out on. The trick racing potential along that right hand retaining wall is exceptionally high, I feel. But look at that smaller container boat to the slight left of the centre of the image. You'll presumably be able to commandeer those. Overall, shots like this give a nice sense of how the outskirts of Vice City, the greater parts of Leonida, will look.
Then we get a close look at a bikini-clad woman enjoying a rooftop party. Then a time lapse shot of a sign that says "VICE".
[0:41] Chaos ascends; social media stuff
Oh man, this is where it starts to get hectic. Social media will feature heavily in GTA 6, because a lot of time is spent on it in this trailer. The first shot is of some bozo on a yacht with a straw hat, standing next to the American flag. A bunch of revellers cheer on. "Ay Papi! Save some sugar baby for the rest of us!" reads the accompanying text in the social media post, published by DadBodSquad. I'm guessing the old straw hat guy is the sugar daddy and they're his sugar babies (my analytical prowess: confirmed?).
After that the OfficialPoach account—we don't know what the social media platform is called yet—posts a video of a guy fishing a crocodile out of a backyard pool (crocodiles confirmed). The accompanying text: "Stay Alert VC! Remember to check for uninvited guests before the pool party".
Next we get a vertical orientation shot of a woman twerking on the roof of a moving car. This is posted by the account have.a.vice.day, with the accompanying text: "Someone call the department of transport on this dumptruck #have.a.vice.day". The dumptruck mentioned is an allusion to the ass being twerked. That's GTA humour, for you.
Then we get footage of an impromptu street party, complete with dangerously drifting muscle cars and revellers dancing on rooftops. There's a live stream of this street party, with a comment feed that mirrors reality, in the sense that none of the comments are very useful or illustrative of anything.
[0:48] CCTV footage of a crocodile entering a restaurant
Probably my favourite moment in the trailer. A crocodile saunters into a cafe. The moment is captured by CCTV. This part is the most graphically impressive in my view: I thought it was FMV. Maybe it is? Look at the plastic on that toilet paper!
[0:49] Some SWAT guys breaching a building
First person footage of some cops busting down a door. Looks really good. Not sure if this confirms first-person view at launch, because it's bodycam footage. Like the CCTV above, it looks lifelike because of the video filter. Kinda hard to take a screenshot of this moment because it's too blurry.
[0:50] More social media and flesh fixations
PlanetLeonidaMan posts "usually gotta hit the strip club to see jiggle like that fr", alluding to the accompanying video showing a near-naked person with a big bum being chased by a police. There's a petrol station in the background and some damn nice puddles. Puddle watchers will be on the alert.
GeneralCustardCannon posts: "Only in Leonida is a crotch grab an apology for bad driving". Accompanying vid shows a burly tatted guy in a singlet performing aforementioned gesture. Definitely of a redneck persuasion. It's happening alongside a highway leading to Vice Beaches, Port VC/KEys, and the airport again. I love the backdrop of this moment: a bleak wasteland of spaghetti junctions and distributor roads. A roadside billboard we only see a bit of alludes to panty sniffing. GTA is back yeah.
Then YoMammazJammer posts "RIP Rudi - C U in heaven, cuz," accompanied by the seemingly irrelevant footage of a guy being dangerous in a moving car.
[0:54] More social media chaos, including weird g-string guy and hammer wielding grandma
This next shot is a close second fave. An older bald guy wearing a visor, stands in his front yard—visible to the road—hosing his garden. He's basically naked save a g-string and, weirdly, shoes with socks. Get some sandals, bruv.
I don't love this shot because of the old guy. I love the verdancy of his garden, which he clearly looks after very well. After that we see some revellers at what appears to be a truck festival, lathered in mud. The footage is lightly watermarked with a logo reading ThrillBilly Mud Club. Mud clubs confirmed. The woman in the shot holds up two devil horned hands and sticks her tongue out. She's probably wasted.
Then there's live footage captured by "LuchaLibreFan", of a woman holding two hammers. Presumably poised to attack or defend with them. She's standing outside what appears to be a strip motel, and the cement beneath her is beautifully rugged and lifeline. She says, "Well, look who's back".
[0:58] Guy falls on table
This very brief scene shows a guy at an open air party (maybe the same ThrillBilly hoedown?). He's launched onto a trestle table full of drinks. He breaks the table. Not sure why we're shown this. It looks cool though.
[1:00] We meet Lucia's sidekick and companion/lover
Finally we're back to the focus point of this GTA 6 reveal trailer: the story. Lucia is in the passenger seat next to a guy who she's presumably close with. "The only way we're gonna get through this is by sticking together," she says, "being a team".
While Lucia says all this we see a montage of chaos: the slow burn of the reveal's start has given away to the mayhem of 2020s America. Live Weazel news footage shows the aftermath of an intense police pursuit. Hordes of masked dirt bike enthusiasts parade down a dusty suburban street (there's an ATV here too). A heavily tatted guy in scrubs appears on a Spanish-language news broadcast, accompanied by the text:
Confession written in ink (for tattoos)
A neck tattoo that gave himself away, key to the conviction of a Leonida man
After this brief montage Lucia and her as-yet-unnamed companion are masked, roaming the aisles of a small narrow-corridor shop they're presumably intending to rob. Then they're making a quick getaway, and then they're together in a motel room. This shot confirms that they're very close, possibly lovers. They share the words "trust". Then, during the final moment of the trailer, they're storming a roadside shop with pistols aloft. A sign on the door reads "We will no longer accept cash stored in underwear". Another warns against drinking in the store (for safety reasons!).
Overall, seems like a pretty sweet videogame. GTA 6 will release in 2025, but only PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions have been announced at this time, which likely means that the PC version will release sometime after it comes out on consoles. For Red Dead Redemption 2, it took a year. Boo.
