As we sift through the latest leaked gameplay videos for Grand Theft Auto VI, it's worth wondering: Which console will provide the most high-end experience when the game launches on Nov. 19?
The answer would usually be PC, but Rockstar has not announced a PC version of GTA 6 yet, and might not for a while. GTA V didn't launch on PC until two years later, after all. With that in mind, people are wondering if it's worth it to splurge on a PlayStation 5 Pro just to experience Vice City at the highest level of fidelity possible.
Rockstar has yet to share official visual and performance specs for any version of the game just yet, but let's investigate anyway with what little information we have.
Will GTA VI be upgraded on PS5 Pro?
This is the big question, and it's one we don't really have an answer to right now.
Rockstar's official marketing line for the last few months has been that GTA VI "plays best on PS5," but that tagline doesn't say anything about PS5 Pro. It also doesn't say much of anything in general, as we have no idea what the differences will be between the base PS5 and the Xbox Series X versions of GTA VI. It's not an exaggeration to say that we're operating with almost no useful information about the way this game performs on consoles right now, aside from the fact that the extended Netflix trailer was apparently captured on a base PS5.
There has been one recent little crumb of hope that the PS5 Pro version of the game is an upgrade over the base version, though. A recently released screenshot of a wet city street at night showcased high-quality reflections that don't seem to be present in the base PS5 build shown on Netflix or in any other marketing. Oliver Mackenzie of Digital Foundry, an outlet dedicated to technical analysis of game visuals, said on X that this screenshot may not represent regular PS5 gameplay.
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Mackenzie estimates that these reflections use ray tracing, a relatively recent technology that generates real-time, high-quality lighting and reflections, while requiring a pretty intense amount of horsepower.
Base PS5 games technically can and do utilize ray tracing on occasion; the reflections in the Marvel's Spider-Man series on PS5 are a good go-to example. But given the extremely high level of graphical detail present in GTA 6, it stands to reason that the game might not be able to use ray tracing on a base PS5, but could possibly include that feature on PS5 Pro.
It must be emphasized that this is all speculation based on one measly screenshot, which might not even show the console version of the game at all. Rockstar very well could have captured it using an internal PC build, as Mackenzie noted on X. But there is plenty of precedent for games like Ghost of Yotei locking the best ray tracing features behind PS5 Pro-exclusive modes, so it's possible GTA VI could do the same.
Is the PS5 Pro worth it in general?
A PS5 Pro retails for $900 at the moment, and that's under the best of conditions, as a recent shortage has driven up the price on the secondary market considerably (as high as $1,300). It is perfectly reasonable to not want to spend that much money on a gaming device, no matter how powerful it is, and no matter how much better GTA 6 might look on it — emphasis on might.
But, as a PS5 Pro owner myself, I will say that games rarely (if ever) look or run worse on PS5 Pro, and big-budget AAA productions often benefit in some way from the added horsepower. A couple of my favorite games of this console generation, Dragon's Dogma 2 and Death Stranding 2, look and perform absolutely wonderfully on PS5 Pro, just to provide two examples.
If you care about having the best graphics in every game, a PC is the way to go. But if you don't want a PC — or if the game you want to play isn't being released on PC for the foreseeable future — then the PS5 Pro is your second-best option. Just try not to spend too much more than $900 on it.
In the meantime, you can pre-order Grand Theft Auto VI for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 for $79.99.