I Wanted More From Netflix’s GTA VI Reveal – Esquire Singapore
I Wanted More From Netflix’s GTA VI Reveal
The streamer’s much-anticipated preview didn’t show anything revolutionary. Don’t get me wrong, though: I’ll still be there on day one
BY
Bryn Gelbart
Published: 28 August 2026
Today, Netflix gave its subscribers a rare treat. They got the opportunity—nay, the privilege—to watch what amounted to an extended trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, the upcoming blockbuster from Rockstar Games. The title’s 19 November release is shaping up to be the video game event of the decade; it’ll be so big that the state of Florida is planning a Miami city takeover, and Netflix has claimed exclusive rights to the reveal of the first 26 minutes of gameplay… at least until Rockstar puts it on YouTube.
Rockstar and Netflix’s splashy reveal was an unprecedented corporate synergy and a bit weird as a stunt, but it went a long way to make a MP4 file upload feel like an event. (Even if a good deal of what we saw was already out there thanks to the past week’s worth of “Cyberleeks.”) When it comes to GTA 6 itself, well, this is clearly a GTA game. Fans who have been waiting for a sequel to GTA V for 13 years will find a lot to love. But in those 26 minutes, anyone who’s been playing games in the intervening years won’t see much we haven’t seen before. That’s disappointing.
At this point, the Grand Theft Auto formula for open-world game is well established. You drive, shoot, and crime your way through the most photorealistic urban environments in modern video games. GTA 6 takes place in Vice City, the GTA universe’s equivalent of Miami, and stars a duo of playable characters, Lucia and Jason. They’re a present-day Bonny and Clyde, and a lot of their personality shines through in this footage.
So far, gamers are making a lot of the reveal that the player can potentially impact that relationship with their actions, but the extended gameplay chooses instead to focus more on how the two interact in missions, and how you can switch between the two at seemingly any time that’s not a cutscene. The extended look also showed off cinematic moments, showing pops of dozens of new immersive activities and mini-games, lots of driving, and plenty of the new and improved gunplay. It’s all very cool, but it’s stuff we’ve seen before—most of it in past Rockstar games.
I won’t deny that even running on base PlayStation 5 (as revealed at the end of the trailer), GTA 6 is gorgeous. There’s no lack of attention to detail. You won’t see (or hear) more expressive, dynamic NPCs in a video game city anywhere else. There appears to be such galaxy-brained ideas only Rockstar could come up with, such as “fridge inventory” and “every store is rob-able.” There also appears to be a TV you can just watch whenever, for fun, like the radio in previous titles, just because. And the soundtrack is going to be full of ‘80s and ‘80s-inspired bangers.
But forgive me a senior gamer moment. When we first saw Grand Theft Auto V in 2013, it took only five minutes to show off the (at the time) revolutionary character-switching between the three protagonists of that game. That got me hyped. The five-minute reveal also showed off heists, which ended up being tentpole moments in the story, and are having a second life of their own in GTA Online. In the months leading up to the 2018 release of Red Dead Redemption II, Rockstar put up two six-minute videos taking a deep dive into all the gameplay systems. In comparison, the GTA 6 preview felt wide, but shallow.
Point being: previous Rockstar showcases seemed to show a lot more innovation in a lot less time. Grand Theft Auto VI looks polished. It is committed to the snarky tone, label-pushing profanity, and promiscuity that has come to define the franchise. Aside from the core relationship, I can’t find anything truly new in these 26 minutes. It’s GTA with better graphics, and a few more bells and whistles. And that makes the success of GTA 6 feel more inevitable than ever.
At the end of the day, FOMO is the mind-killer. I can have critical gamer thoughts now, but I know in November I will feel the need to be a part of the conversation. GTA 6 will be a generation-defining piece of entertainment. I’m just not yet convinced it will be a great one.
