GTA 6 fans discover glitches and "mistakes" in trailer from Rockstar Games, should YOU be worried?

Glitches and graphical issues have been spotted in the background of the trailer, with some characters seemingly standing on water, missing shadows and reflections, and duplicate models appearing in different scenes.

While this has caused widespread panic amongst fans desperate for news on the follow-up to GTA V — the biggest-selling entertainment product in history, with $6 billion in revenue to its name since launch.

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Bafflingly, despite reaching more than 90 million views on YouTube within 24-hours of its release — a record, these discoveries have only emerged over 270 days after the release of the trailer by developer Rockstar Games. It's because of that marathon wait that's driven GTA fans to meticulously analyse the footage frame-by-frame.

Fans have identified several specific issues in the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer:

• A non-playable character, NPC, pictured in a T-pose during a car doughnut scene
• Light leaking through a supposedly solid road barrier
• Glowing hair on a character in a strip club scene
• Low-quality textures and rough polygons in certain scenes
• Eronious wind physics when a character jumps into a moving vehicle
• Clothes clipping through character models
• Missing shadows
• Missing reflections in the beach scenes

As more of these graphical glitches and missing polish have been unearthed in the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, one fan has collated everything together in a thread on X, formerly Twitter.

Mistakes Rockstar made in the GTA 6 trailer:

Missing wind physics on Lucia’s hair that doesn’t match the speed of the car.
(1/7) pic.twitter.com/5jogm4LH8q

— GTA 6 Countdown ⏳ (@GTAVI_Countdown) August 31, 2024

The distant streetlight is unrendered, but its light is still visible on the ground.
(2/7) pic.twitter.com/ZuxROP0jyU

— GTA 6 Countdown ⏳ (@GTAVI_Countdown) September 1, 2024

Missing shadow of NPCs on the left side and 2D storefront that doesn’t seem enterable.
(6/7) pic.twitter.com/n6af0CzfU6

— GTA 6 Countdown ⏳ (@GTAVI_Countdown) August 31, 2024

Bonus:

This NPC’s foot can be seen clipping through the sand. pic.twitter.com/z6Jt2FYbhe

— GTA 6 Countdown ⏳ (@GTAVI_Countdown) September 2, 2024

The presence of these glitches has led many to conclude that the trailer footage is actual in-game content rather than pre-rendered scenes. In-game content refers to footage captured directly from the game engine, whilst pre-rendered scenes are created separately and often appear more polished.

Video game developers typically employ both techniques in their trailers. Pre-rendered scenes can showcase a the visual potential of a title, while in-game footage demonstrates the actual experience that players can expect.

If the speculation among fans is correct, and Rockstar Games is capturing footage from the game engine, it means the trailer is likely a fair representation of how Grand Theft Auto VI will look when it's available on consoles next year — provided there are no delays.

As for the concerns around the glitches and missing elements, Rockstar Games still has a year to work on Grand Theft Auto VI, so the finished title is guaranteed to be more polished than the footage in the trailer.

The development of GTA VI is rumoured to be a massive undertaking. According to whispers, Rockstar Games could've spent as much as $2 billion developing the open-world crime-caper over the last 10 years. If accurate, that would make the next Grand Theft Auto the most expensive video game ever produced — dwarfing the estimated £265 million spent on its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V .

Rumours persist about a second trailer. User @Nuro_Citrix, who correctly predicted the first trailer's release, has shared on X that a follow-up video will drop in November 2024. This remains unconfirmed by Rockstar Games.

With fans scouring every single frame of the first trailer, rumours of a ballooning multi-billion budget, and almost a year to go until the next GTA game arrives on store shelves... one veteran video game developer with 20 years experience at Rockstar Games working on the Grand Theft Auto series has issued a warning to fans who are counting down the days until the release of GTA VI, suggesting "people might be a little disappointed."

Former Rockstar Games Technical Director Obbe Vermeij believes the 12-year wait between instalments means Grand Theft Auto VI will struggle to live up to lofty expectations after all of that time. In a new interview, the veteran developer says that fans should expect a pretty similar experience to Grand Theft Auto V and that hoping for too much of a change could lead to disappointment.

"I don’t think it’s going to be wildly different from GTA 5," he explained. "I think maybe people might be a little disappointed on the first day but it’s still going to be the best game out there."

Mr Vermeij no longer works at Rockstar Games, but was involved in the making of some of its biggest hits— he served as Technical Director on Grand Theft Auto 3, as well as GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto IV. The sixth entry in the series promises to return fans to Vice City.

Mr Vermeij was still employed at Rockstar Games, which has offices in New York City, Dundee, and Toronto, when it launched GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, but he doesn't appear in the credits for GTA V.

The ex-Rockstar Games employee claims to have no "inside information" on the development of Grand Theft Auto VI and has issued his warning about longtime fans being disappointed after watching the trailer and his experience working at the company over two decades. He explained: "It’s going to be a good game for sure."

During the interview, conducted by YouTube channel SanInPlay, Mr Vermeij doesn't clarify his comments about the new title not departing from Grand Theft Auto V, but presumably, he's referring to the general plotlines, mission structure, and levels of violence. A new online mode, similar to the one that debuted with GTA V is also in the works at the company, whispers from within Rockstar Games suggest — another similarity.

It's unclear when exactly the sixth mainline entry in the Grand Theft Auto series will launch. Take-Two Interactive has narrowed the previous release window of next year to a more specific — but still frustratingly vague — timeframe of "fall 2025". Provided nothing changes between now and then, it means Grand Theft Auto fans will have waited 12 years between instalments.

"As we enter Fiscal 2025 with positive momentum, we expect to deliver Net Bookings of $5.55 to $5.65 billion," the earnings report states. "Our outlook reflects a narrowing of Rockstar Games’ previously established window of Calendar 2025 to Fall of Calendar 2025 for Grand Theft Auto VI.

"We are highly confident that Rockstar Games will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience, and our expectations for the commercial impact of the title continue to increase."

Experts believe the next instalment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise could break its own record sales numbers. Its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V, still holds the crown for the best opening week of sales in video game history — raking in $1.15bn (£1.2bn) in five days. It has gone on to become the second biggest game of all-time, although it's still 100 million copies behind the Gold Medalist, Minecraft.

But many like Dmitri Williams, a video game business expert and professor at University of Southern California, expect the long-awaited follow-up to perform even better. He said: "The brand is as strong or stronger than it was before, but additionally the game industry is larger. If it maintains the same slice of the pie, it's going to be big, because it will come from a bigger pie.

"The games industry is simply massive globally, and is no single genre or platform. It's so large and so varied that even fractions of it are larger than whole parallel industries like movies.”

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Sony is tipped to capitalise on the excitement around the next Rockstar Games title by launching an improved PlayStation 5 console with upgraded graphics and a tweaked case design.

The next instalment of the popular Grand Theft Auto series will take gamers back to Vice City, which last appeared in 2006's Vice City Stories. Rockstar Games has already confirmed the franchise will use a female protagonist for the first time since 2000, known as Lucia.

Little is known about the plot of the satirical action-adventure game, but it's widely expected to mirror the misadventures of Bonnie and Clyde across a fictional US State that spoofs on Florida, dubbed Leonida.