GTA 6 Gameplay Mechanics: Every Confirmed Feature So Far

Everything on this page has been shown running or described on the record by someone at Rockstar. Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look premiered on 27 August 2026, and Rockstar’s Newswire says it was “Captured entirely from in-game footage on PlayStation 5”. Twenty-seven minutes of gameplay, plus the press previews published alongside it, turned a long list of maybes into a list of mechanics.

This article used to be a list of things I assumed would be in the game. Most of them were wrong, and one section described an online mode that Rockstar has never announced. I have rewritten it around what is actually on tape.

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games

The wanted system now goes to six stars

The biggest confirmed change is that the wanted meter runs to six stars, up from five in GTA 5. GamesRadar+ reported it on 28 August 2026 from the Extended Look footage, in a mission where Jason and Lucia drive a client away from police.

What sits underneath the stars matters more than the extra one. Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson told IGN:

The wanted system in GTA 6 requires that someone witness the crime, or an alarm needs to be set off for it to be reported to the law.

So a crime nobody sees is not automatically a crime the police respond to. That single sentence changes how the whole sandbox behaves.

The police track four things about you

Below the stars sit four icons, and GamesRadar+ describes them as representing what the police have recognised: their clothes, their faces, their car, and the fact that they’re together. Nelson walked IGN through what you do about it:

One star is not going to be too difficult to get away from. You can see with these little icons on-screen, the police know what we’re driving, so we should just jump out of the vehicle. They also know we’re a couple. You could split up, and that will also help lower the police’s perception of you.

In the footage, the pair break line of sight and the four white stars turn red, which GamesRadar+ reads as the police still hunting but no longer in active pursuit. They swap vehicles, the car icon drops off the display, and a patrol car that does not recognise the new vehicle drives straight past.

Escaping on foot is the better play

Nelson was direct about how Rockstar wants chases to go, and it is not the GTA 5 answer of finding a fast car:

If you get three stars in the city, it can sometimes be challenging to get away in a vehicle, unless it’s a very fast vehicle or a sports bike. Your best option is usually to do this - get off the streets and get on foot into the alleys.

He tied that to deliberate work on traversal: “We put a lot of work into how you can navigate the world, trying to make everything as smooth as possible to really encourage this type of gameplay where you are running and getting out of the car, jumping and climbing fences.”

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games

The Criminal Profile tracks how you commit crimes

Separately from the wanted level, the game keeps a running profile of how Jason and Lucia operate. GamesRadar+ describes it as every crime you commit building “up Jason and Lucia’s criminal profile that defines their modus operandi”, and compares it to Red Dead Redemption 2’s honour system.

Nelson told IGN the system distinguishes between defending yourself and escalating. Firing back at someone already attacking you is not judged the same way as starting an unprovoked rampage. Engadget’s write-up of the showcase puts it as “firing back at an angry NPC who is acting as the aggressor won’t be judged as harshly as going on an unhinged killing spree”, and notes that small positive actions count toward the profile too.

What the profile actually unlocks, gates or changes has not been explained. GamesRadar+ says plainly that “there are still secrets around how this element will work”, and I am not going to fill that gap with a guess.

Jason and Lucia are a pair, not two save slots

Character switching returns, but the two leads are built to operate together rather than separately. Engadget notes that certain missions only allow you to play as one of them, and that cutscenes sometimes decide which of them takes a job.

The showcase leans on the partnership constantly. GamesRadar+ describes Lucia driving while Jason shoots from the window in one chase, and the pair splitting a firefight at a millionaire’s party, with Jason handling armed enemies upstairs while Lucia fights downstairs. Rockstar also considered four lead characters for GTA 6 before settling on two.

There is a button to hold hands. That is not a mechanic anybody demanded, and it tells you what Rockstar thinks this game is about.

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games

Stealing a car is no longer one button

Vehicles now have tiers of security, and you need the right tool for each. The Extended Look shows Jason using a slim jim on a car window, which Engadget describes as a minigame with a right-stick-timed meter. Engadget also reports that fancier vehicles have electronic locks and need a key cloner.

Two things stop this being pure friction. An unsecured car is still quick to take, and GamesRadar+ notes Jason can choose to smash the window instead - louder, faster, and more likely to be witnessed, which now matters because of the rule about crimes needing a witness.

It also gives early-game progression something to bite on. Small-time, you take what your tools allow. The better scores come later.

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games

Loot is a physical object you carry

Bags of money, drugs and goods exist in the world and change what you can do while holding them. This is the detail I did not expect to matter as much as it does.

GamesRadar+ describes Lucia carrying so much that she has to use a shotgun one-handed, with a reload animation built for it, and Jason slinging a bag of drugs over his shoulder in real time during a police raid. Engadget confirms the one-handed weapon handling while carrying items.

The same system runs the other way into robberies. GamesRadar+ describes Lucia drawing a pistol and holding it behind her back as she walks into a store, to avoid setting anyone off before she is ready. Engadget reports an item wheel that includes face coverings, and concealment animations before you enter a shop.

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games

Combat: cover, focus shots and a targeting overlay

Gunplay is cover-based, with a time-slowing focus mode and an overlay that marks where you are aiming, and melee is a system of its own.

Gunplay

GamesRadar+ describes Jason taking cover in a dark office, popping out for headshots with killcams, and slowing time to aim focus shots in the manner of Max Payne 3 or Michael in GTA 5.

The targeting overlay is the genuinely new part. Engadget describes red points marking lethal shots and yellow markers around joints for non-lethal disarming, which makes “shoot to stop” a real option rather than a roleplay choice. Engadget also reports you can swap between two firearms without opening a weapon wheel.

Melee

Melee is a real system too, not a fallback. The showcase has Lucia lifting weights at a gym and then winning a street fight with her fists, and finishing a man with a heel in a QTE. GamesRadar+‘s read is that the footage positions Jason as the gun expert and Lucia as more of a bruiser, with the caveat that nobody knows yet whether that is a showcase choice or something you shape.

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games

Your habits change your body

Eating, drinking, smoking and training visibly change Jason and Lucia. GamesRadar+ confirms you will be able to get “a little chubby” from the likes of cigars and potato chips, and shows Lucia at the gym.

There is a relationship layer on top. GamesRadar+ describes an interface showing the pair connected by a heart with angry emoji underneath, during a sequence where Lucia base jumps and Jason drinks with friends. What that measures, and whether it has consequences, has not been explained.

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games

What the world does back

Robbing a shop can get you shot at by a civilian, not just by police. GamesRadar+ reports that robbing stores and gas stations “will see citizens take the law into their own hands”, and describes the pair being confronted by an angry woman with hammers.

Away from crime, GamesRadar+ counted 17 distinct side activities in the showcase alone, including kayaking, basketball, diving and clubbing. The map is around three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2’s, and Rob Nelson put his own story-focused playthrough at roughly 80 hours - the fuller picture of that is in our story length breakdown, and the regions are covered in the Leonida map guide.

What this article no longer claims

An earlier version of this page had a section on online mode integration - shared events, Jason and Lucia appearing in Online content, cross-mode progression. None of that was ever announced. Rockstar describes Grand Theft Auto VI as a single player experience, and has announced no online mode at all. Our piece on what Rockstar has actually said about GTA 6 Online is the accurate version.

It also claimed trust mechanics between the leads, an NPC memory system, in-game social networks and a reputation system. The Criminal Profile is the closest thing that turned out to be real, and it is not the same feature. For where those claims came from and which ones survived contact with the footage, see the gameplay rumours audit.

Bottom line

The Extended Look replaced guesswork with a specific, unusually interlocking set of systems. Crimes need witnesses, witnesses feed the wanted level, the wanted level tracks four separate things about you, and what you do while wanted feeds a profile that persists. Carrying loot changes how you fight. Stealing a car depends on tools you have or do not have yet.

None of it is the “revolutionary AI” the rumour cycle promised for three years. It is smaller, more specific and considerably more interesting, and the best part is that you can go and watch all of it rather than take my word for it.

TLDR (For people that didn’t learn to read good) 📚