In just eight days, we'll be able to play GTA 6 — meaning that later next week, we'll be having a blast in the state of Leonida. Witnessing this moment firsthand is truly exciting. After all, we've endured delay after delay, seen all kinds of wild speculation and rumors, and an endless stream of memes. But now, the most important thing is that GTA 6 is about to launch. You can almost reach out and touch it through the TV screen. Lately, people have been digging through PlayStation's backend data and have uncovered quite a few juicy details, involving the PS5 Pro enhancements and GTA 6's online mode. In today's GTA news video, we'll be talking about all of this.
However, the PS5 Pro's CPU performance boost is limited, so don't get your hopes up for a 60 FPS mode. But its GPU is indeed significantly stronger, with improvements in AI computing power and ray tracing capabilities. In other words, the ray tracing effects will be better, and the image after upscaling will be sharper. Digital Foundry previously pointed out that GTA 6 looks quite good on the standard PS5, but its actual rendering resolution is only 1440p, which is then upscaled to 4K-level resolution through upscaling technology. The PS5 Pro's upscaling algorithm can make the image cleaner and clearer — meaning there will be less aliasing and blurriness in details like hair.
Earlier this week, the official PlayStation blog teased that special news would come later, hinting it might be related to the Pro's image quality enhancements. But we don't have to wait until then, because the data mining community's experts have already dug up quite a few answers from the metadata of the PS5 pre-load files. Let's take a look at what they found. There are two notable files in the download package, named story000BVH4 and story BVH8 — but only the Pro version has the BVH8 file, which is about 223.5 million bytes in size. Even if you're not familiar with 3D rendering technology, don't worry.
Let me explain in plain language what BVH actually is. Everyone should be familiar with ray tracing. Ray tracing simulates real-world light — how light emitted from a source reflects when it hits different objects and materials in the environment. Older lighting techniques pre-bake lighting effects into the scene, so ray tracing produces a more natural and realistic image. But the cost is higher performance demands, because every time a ray of light reflects in 3D space, the GPU has to calculate millions of possible scenarios. To reduce these calculations, developers build a BVH — a Bounding Volume Hierarchy. Simply put, it helps the game engine take shortcuts during rendering.
It tells the engine which areas don't need to be checked for light reflections — those areas can simply be skipped. This way, the system only needs to check for light bounces in the necessary areas of the scene, rather than scanning the entire scene. Here's an analogy: suppose you go to a shopping mall to buy a GTA 6-themed DualSense controller. Without a BVH tree, you'd have to walk through every aisle on every floor of the mall and search every single shelf. That search would genuinely take a whole day, because you'd have no idea where to start looking. But with a BVH tree, things are different — you can narrow down your search step by step according to a categorized hierarchy. You no longer need to check every shelf on every floor.
You can go straight to the game store, which is on the second floor. Once in the store, you head directly to the PlayStation section, then find the shelf for standard controllers. That way, instead of wandering the mall all day, you can find the controller you want in just 2 minutes. That's exactly what BVH does in ray tracing. When players dug into the game data, they found that this BVH8 file is exclusive to the PS5 Pro, which pretty much confirms that the PS5 Pro will have some exclusive optimizations. To clarify here, this doesn't mean the standard PS5 can't use BVH8 — without this technology, real-time ray tracing simply wouldn't be possible at all.
The real difference is this: Rockstar specifically built a different object hierarchy structure for the PS5 Pro, because when the PS5 Pro renders the same scene, the image precision is higher. Additionally, we've confirmed that the PS5 Pro will use an upgraded upscaling technology. Tez2 posted a set of extracted data on a GTA forum, which revealed a version of PSSR we've never seen before. Take a close look at this image — the MFSR2 version listed here is 13.6. Sony's internal naming is different: they call PSSR "Multi-Frame Super Resolution," or MFSR for short. We know that Cyberpunk 2077
and even Assassin's Creed use version 13.0A — that version is PSSR 2. But here it's already version 13.6, so this is an upgraded version customized specifically for GTA 6. That said, I don't think this is quite PSSR 3 yet, but it's very likely a PSSR 2 version tuned specifically for GTA 6, designed to make the game run better. This is probably thanks to the special partnership between Sony and Rockstar, which is why they were able to make custom optimizations specifically for this game. Other game companies all use the same generic software solution. The PS5 Pro also supports a 120Hz high refresh rate mode.
But this only refers to the TV's refresh rate — it doesn't mean the game will actually run at such a high frame rate. The game will most likely still run at just 30 FPS, so that's the frame rate cap. Another point: there's no mention of VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) support here, which might mean the game will be locked at 30 FPS, or offer an optional 40 FPS mode only on the Pro. But the specifics will have to wait until Sony publishes the official blog post explaining the PS5 Pro's enhanced features to be confirmed. I also noticed that the exported metadata this time makes no mention of PSSR at all, so players on the standard PS5 might not get the latest upscaling technology.
But it's not a big deal, because the standard PS5's rendering resolution is already 1440p. The base image quality is already quite good, so the upscaling algorithm doesn't have to invent too much detail from scratch. Playing on a 1440p monitor or a 4K TV is perfectly fine — even on the standard PS5, you can play with confidence. If you're using a PS5 Pro, congratulations — you'll be getting the best possible GTA 6 experience, at least until the PC version comes out. Hopefully we'll get it next year. Now, let's move on to something else. There have also been some trophy-related leaks this time — similar information was leaked for Red Dead Redemption 2 back in the day.
So it's not surprising that similar leaks have surfaced for GTA6 this time as well. To be precise, what was leaked this time are achievements, not trophies, which means this batch of data comes from the Xbox platform. However, we have already confirmed that the total number of GTA6 trophies and achievements is 55. The first 54 trophies correspond to values 1 through 54, and there is one additional special trophy corresponding to a value of 0.1 thousand. This could be the Platinum trophy on PS5, or it could be the mythical achievement on Xbox. Either way, GTA6 has a total of 55 trophies and achievements. I expect that in the coming days, the specific names of these trophies may also surface online, though Rockstar will deliberately give them fairly vague names to prevent leakers from digging out story details or even important details about the game world from them.
For comparison, GTA5's single-player mode has 32 trophies, while Red Dead Redemption 2 has 35. Looking at it this way, GTA6's game world is definitely going to be much bigger. Just from the trophy count alone, you can tell that there will be far more content to play this time. Now let's talk about GTA6's online mode, which has been quiet with no news for a long time. Up to this point, Rockstar has kept an extremely tight lid on this matter. Even the PlayStation store page says something similar—the FAQ clearly states that GTA6 is primarily a single-player experience. But you and I both know perfectly well that even a crab hiding under a rock at the bottom of the sea knows GTA6 will definitely have an online mode, because it will be Take-Two's biggest money-making machine for the next 10 years. Compared to the current GTA Online, they will squeeze even more money out of GTA6's online mode. But we players will also get something in return—we'll get to experience something truly groundbreaking that could even completely rewrite the landscape of online gaming. But the question everyone wants to ask right now is this: why is there still no news about GTA6's online mode? Well, we've actually found some clues, and the clues are hidden in data shared on Twitter by Test Phone 2 from PlayStation Game Size's raw data.
This data shows that GTA6's single-player and online modes will share a common set of base installation files. In other words, the underlying content of both story mode and online mode comes from the same core resource package. The PlayStation Game Size account also dug some hidden feature information out of this raw data, such as "join game" and "launch event," as well as "launch multiplayer event." In other words, basic multiplayer online functionality is already built into the game. But I'd guess these features haven't been activated yet, because Rockstar is only just wrapping up the single-player mode, so we'll have to wait until GTA6 Online's content is polished before there's an update. Of course, it's hard to say exactly when that will happen. When the time comes, they will first release a patch, and then shortly afterward, through a server-side update, they will enable these features. Take-Two's CEO himself, in an interview with Bloomberg, hinted that GTA6's online mode might launch in 2027. I also have my own prediction: if they really want to maximize the hype for GTA6 Online, I estimate it will launch before the summer of 2027.
Next, let's talk about a heartwarming story. The star is a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria nicknamed Oreo, which once served at the Warminster Township Police Department. It took part in plenty of law enforcement operations—it responded to bank robberies and chased down car theft suspects. So Oreo was basically a real-life GTA police car. But nowadays most police departments in the US have switched to the Ford Explorer, and Crown Victoria police cars have become rare. Oreo retired in 2019, but unexpectedly, in 2021 it was put back to use for testing for a client who wished to remain anonymous. It later turned out that this mysterious client was none other than Rockstar. Rockstar even brought in a well-known stunt driver who has worked on numerous films to put Oreo through a comprehensive series of tests. The entire testing process was recorded by Rockstar, and the captured audio included engine sounds, sirens, the sounds of doors opening and closing, and the screech of tires under strain. They very likely also used Oreo's performance on the test track to build an extremely detailed vehicle handling model. On November 19, you'll be able to enter the world of GTA6, and you'll be able to get behind the wheel of an old Crown Victoria patrol car—remember, that car's prototype is Oreo, that legendary real-life police car.
Now let's switch topics. There's news about the New Zealand and Australian versions of GTA6 as well. These two versions may have content cut, because both are missing a file called CORE Rest of World 001. This file is only about 700,000 bytes, so it doesn't look like a major change—it might just be licensing files. But even more extreme is the Japanese version of GTA6, which is missing a full 1.2 billion bytes of data compared to other versions. This isn't the first time the Japanese version has been censored—the Japanese version of GTA5 also had cuts, with sex workers removed from certain adult scenes. But GTA6 has already been rated Z (Zero Z) in Japan, meaning it can only be purchased by players aged 18 and over, and the packaging clearly states adults only. I just don't understand why they still need to cut that content over there. By the way, a heads-up for anyone living in Miami or planning to travel there: on November 21, there's going to be quite a spectacle. Rockstar is teaming up with Travis Scott, Cardi B, Kodak Black, and several other artists to hold a live event called the GTA6 Carnival, located in Mana Wynwood. For those who like buying merchandise, check this out: Selfridges in London is selling a jacket priced at 0.25 thousand euros. These items are exclusive to that store—shirts, pants, hats, badges, and bags are all available, and every single one is ridiculously expensive. After paying by card, looking at the bill will absolutely hurt. But these items are perfectly aimed at die-hard fans and scalpers—I'd say this merchandise will be quite attractive to both groups.
Also, Grand Theft Auto VI just makes it in time for this year's Game Awards, since the eligibility deadline is November 20. I'd bet that by the time you watch this video, some reviewers are already halfway through the main story. So honestly, they might as well just hand the Game of the Year award to Grand Theft Auto VI and be done with it. Everyone knows that as long as GTA6 is on the nominee list, no other game stands a chance. Additionally, someone has leaked the boxed redemption-code version of the game. The official cover art can now be seen, and we've even seen what the inside of the box looks like—so let me give you a sneak peek first.
The box doesn't come with a map, but you can buy a poster from Rockstar's official store for 99 cents each. Honestly though, once you factor in shipping, it's not worth it—you'd be better off downloading the original image and printing it at a nearby print shop to save quite a bit of money. I really don't understand why Rockstar has to pinch pennies like this. After all, this physical edition is already wasting a pile of plastic anyway—they might as well include a map and at least give us something. I'm guessing they were afraid the map would leak before release. Wait, no—hasn't the map already leaked? We even have the complete map, all thanks to that guy whose name I won't mention—the green vegetable guy. But the stuff he left behind is still circulating in map-making circles to this day.
Now for some other news: on November 19th, British businesses are expected to lose £12 million, because out of 70,000 companies, more than 1.2 million employees have already requested time off in advance to play GTA6, totaling 83,000 days of leave. Also, there was some idiot who, chasing clout, went around spraying his crappy graffiti all over Rockstar's posters and signs. The funny thing is, he completely botched it. Someone had spent days making a great piece of work, and he just destroyed it. In the end, all he got was the entire internet being sick of him. Alright everyone, that's it for today—those were today's GTA6 news updates.
GTA6's release is getting closer and closer. Over the next week I'll keep bringing you more news, and by then Sony should officially announce more details about exactly what enhancements the PS5 Pro version will have. By the way, feel free to chat in the comments—I'm curious how many of you have already bought a PS5 Pro. Lately scalpers have driven the prices up ridiculously high; I've even seen one selling for $1,500. If today's content was helpful, don't forget to give the video a like. See you in the next video, friends—bye!