In case the PC Gamer hardware team is your only source of gaming news—in which case I congratulate you on your life choices—allow me to be the first to inform you the GTA 6 trailer has been released for Rockstar’s latest instalment in its rather popular franchise. And while we might not yet have confirmation of a PC release, we’re still very excited about what one might look like when it eventually arrives.
Call us speculative if you like, but it’s reasonable to assume that once we do get a PC version we’ll be getting some PC specific features as some small consolation. This has been the case with previous Rockstar developed games releasing at a later date on our beloved platform.
It’s time to have a think about what features we might see in a PC release, in the hopes that future generations may look back upon this article and see how right, or indeed wrong we were. So begins a look into our crystal ball…
Ultrawide support
With the rise of ultrawide gaming and the immense popularity of screens like the Alienware AW3423DWF, we would be very, very surprised if GTA 6 didn’t support this feature from the off. Those huge city environments in the trailer seem built to deliver a sense of scale, and nothing gives you a sense of scale better than an ultrawide. Red Dead Redemption 2 received ultrawide support on its PC debut, and from what we’ve seen so far GTA 6 might be the most worthy candidate since then for delivering sweeping vistas in glorious ultra-widescreen.
Unlocked frame rate
Given the complexity of the environments and the level of graphical detail we’ve seen so far, it would be reasonable to assume that consoles, particularly the Xbox Series S, will be running GTA 6 at a limited frame rate. However, us PC-havers are used to being able to crank the frames if our systems can handle it, so a completely unlocked frame rate for a smooth, high refresh rate experience is something we’re really hoping to see on release.
A choice of upscalers
(Image credit: Rockstar)
All that aforementioned detail and complexity means we reckon it’s highly likely GTA 6 is relying on some form of upscaling to help it perform, particularly as it’s been announced for multiple consoles with various levels of hardware grunt. Some parts of the trailer seem to betray some FSR-like artefacts (particularly on hair) which would make sense given the AMD hardware at play in the consoles.
On PC however we’re often spoiled with our choice of upscalers, for those of us that have a specific preference as to which suits our hardware and delivers the best image-quality/performance level balance we desire.
Given integration of various upscalers is supposed to be becoming easier for devs, we’d like to see a choice here, although who knows what versions of DLSS, FSR or XeSS we’ll be considering the best by then.
Higher population density, traffic and crowds
(Image credit: Future)
Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.
More is better, at least when it comes to fleshing out a gameworld to make it feel more alive. Given the processing power available from a modern CPU, it would be remiss not to make use of that to give PC gamers as dense a populated city as made reasonable sense.
Anyone who’s experienced gameworlds like Cyberpunk’s Night City with the crowd-density turned down knows just how much of a difference there is in feel between an empty sandbox and a densely populated one, and it’s a fair bet to assume there’ll be some sort of crowd-density slider to mess around with here on release.
More than that we’re already starting to see more AI integration in PC hardware, like Intel’s upcoming Lunar Lake chips, and the rise of AI-specific hardware becoming more integral to PCs in general. There’s also tech like Nvidia’s ACE that could potentially enable proper AI NPC’s for things like online procedural questing.
Of course, there’s a big question mark as to whether these emerging technologies would be able to be integrated into GTA 6, but given how long it’s likely to be before a PC version hits our machines, arguably there’s still plenty of time to make it work.
Would it be revolutionary, in a release of this size? Absolutely. Is it feasible? Very probably. Is it likely? Well…
Path tracing
(Image credit: Rockstar)
The jury’s still out on whether ray tracing is supported from the off, but certain reflections (particularly some rather lovely flamingos standing in rippling water) suggest that it may well be included. If this is the case, then a fully path traced mode would certainly up the visual fidelity on a PC release, and given the gorgeous implementation in Cyberpunk 2077 it would be great to see all those long shadows and shiny cars in GTA 6 fully path traced for PC.
Imagine the effect in a tropical Florida-analogue storm…
We’re currently relying on upscalers to deliver decent frame rates with path tracing as things stand, but given how well this works now, who’s to say how far GPU and upscaler path tracing performance will have advanced in 2025 or beyond?
Mod support
Modding. Where there are those who release PC games, there are those who take said games and modify them to accommodate all sorts of features, re-skins, and even entire conversions, and a PC version of GTA 6 would do well to take this into account. However, it would be understandable if Rockstar was reluctant to entertain the possibility, given its previous modding experiences.
That being said, mod support in GTA 6 would certainly add to the games already considerable lifespan, and supporting modders at least on some level does a lot to endear a game to the PC gaming community. A big ol’ “maybe” this one, but certainly not outside the realms of possibility.
(Image credit: Rockstar)
While it’s fun to speculate on what sort of features a PC release of GTA 6 might include, the truth is that we just won’t know which are included until Rockstar releases some of the juicer details. That being said, the features above seem like some of the most likely, and it’ll be very interesting to see which make it and which might be less of a priority.
So the only thing left to do really, is throw the question out to you. What features do you hope or expect to see in a GTA 6 PC release? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, as we’d love to read them.
One thing’s for certain: anticipation is already at fever pitch, but it looks like we might have a bit of a wait on our hands to see how GTA 6 turns out on PC. In the meantime, we’ll be here, watching, waiting, and preparing ourselves for a game that is almost certainly going to go down as one of the most hotly anticipated releases of all time.
