A Reddit comparison between the 2023 trailer and an October 8 screenshot has fans split. Notebookcheck breaks down what changed in the lighting, and what cannot be concluded.
Fot. Rockstar Games
Sources notebookcheck.biz
Same street, same sign, three years apart. According to Notebookcheck, a Reddit thread sets a scene from GTA 6's first trailer, released in 2023, next to one of the three screenshots Rockstar published on October 8. The landmark is the "Hotel Dixon" in the background of both images, which lets fans compare the same corner of Vice City.
Notebookcheck says the lighting is what was reworked. Neon signs glow much brighter, colors are richer and the wet asphalt throws back the light sources as reflections. For some fans it proves the delay was put to use: user u/ChristmasTreePickle sees exactly the kind of change Rockstar hinted at when it spoke of the quality it was aiming for. Another jokes that the old version now looks like a PS3-era game.
Not everyone applauds. The site reports that other players find the colors oversaturated and the reflections overdone, reminiscent of heavily modded GTA V where puddles behave like mirrors. User u/Katana_DV20 prefers the 2023 image, which he says better captures Florida's hot, humid air, and compares the new one to Cyberpunk. It comes down to taste, and Notebookcheck says so in its conclusion.
The angles differ, and so do the time of day and the weather. More importantly, one image comes from a trailer and the other is a standalone screenshot, possibly taken under favorable conditions. That raises the question of hardware: Notebookcheck recalls that Digital Foundry suggested unusually sharp ray-traced reflections could point to a PS5 Pro, a PC or a dedicated photo mode. Rockstar has confirmed none of this, and we already covered the three screenshots in our October 8 article.
One professional detail: a lighting engine changes a lot from one year to the next on a project this size, and the 2023 trailer showed a work in progress, not a finished product. Comparing two stages of a building site is not comparing two games.
Nothing changes for the date: the release remains set for November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, as our release page notes. But the debate shows what players expect from the home stretch: a third trailer, still missing, and images captured in real gameplay conditions. Until those exist, the true gap between 2023 and today cannot be measured.
Sources notebookcheck.biz
By Daniel Jasner · VI Countdown newsroom, OKALAM Studio