With only a week left before the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, there’s little in Rockstar Games’ marketing that players haven’t seen before. That familiarity is true of new GTA 6 features, at least. In terms of visuals, the game developer just proved it still has plenty of Leonida to show off.
The new clip that has fans talking was shared via Rockstar’s Instagram stories on Wednesday, and it’s based on a video originally uploaded on the OnlyInDade account. The regional social media account chronicles some of the wackier things that happen in the Florida county. A quick swipe through many of OnlyInDade’s posts will explain exactly why Rockstar made the gator state the setting of its new open-world game. Some Miami-Dade incidents sound like a parody of a Florida Man headline.
The video is only 15 seconds long, but it has repeatedly left viewers with their mouths agape. Many watched it initially and fully believed they were looking at real-world footage. They weren’t.
Is the GTA 6 gameplay AI?
If it seems convincing, it’s because the GTA 6 clip is a near replica of a video that originally captured a scene in Dade. When you compare the two, GTA 6‘s simulacrum becomes more obvious. The “real” video has way more humans walking about, and the colors aren’t saturated to make a screenshot pop. The video game clip also features some shaky cam, which creates the illusion there’s an actual person holding the phone. Mind you, based on the NPC density of areas like the beach, GTA 6 seems capable of rendering the number of people present in the original footage. Paradoxically, the sidewalk’s sparseness in the video game makes it look more convincing.
“this ain’t no gameplay footage this is in real life,” one viewer wrote on X.
On Reddit, the top replies are dozens of people arguing over whether the clip was made by AI. While Rockstar has not outright said the clip is real, it seems unlikely that the developer would share fake footage that could confuse fans. The OnlyInDade account also claims the clip is 100% gameplay. Many are theorizing this is what GTA 6 might look like when the player records the world with their in-game phone.
Previously, GTA 6 fans couldn’t believe how realistic the digital mud looked — and had plenty to say about the game’s trailers. Rockstar has also made it sound like the game will be full of unexpected graphical flourishes, like Red Dead Redemption 2‘s infamous horse balls. Perhaps the 30 frames-per-second limitation that keeps making people melt down online won’t be that big of a deal after all.