The 26-minute video Rockstar published on 27 August 2026 is the only substantial gameplay anyone has seen, and it is worth treating as the reference point for this question. Everything below comes from it.
The wanted system was rebuilt
Police behaviour looks less like a star meter and more like an investigation. Officers search areas rather than teleporting to your position, witnesses matter, and hiding appears to actually work if you break line of sight before a description goes out. The old GTA pattern of driving in a circle until the stars blink out does not appear to survive.
The world is running underneath you
- Shops and homes open without a loading break
- Crowds behave as individuals - filming, arguing, moving on
- Businesses appear to operate on schedules rather than existing as props
Vehicles got fussier
Fuel appears in the footage. So does visible damage that changes handling, and interior detail that suggests cars are modelled as spaces rather than as shells. Whether fuel is a hard system or an option is unclear, but it is on screen.
Weather does something
Storm sequences show flooded roads, wind affecting light objects and visibility collapsing. This is closer to a simulation layer than to the rain filter GTA V applied. There is more on this in our answer about hurricanes in GTA 6.
Two leads, one story
Jason and Lucia are shown working together rather than in the three-way rotation GTA V used. How switching works mechanically was not demonstrated.
What was not shown
No camera options, no difficulty settings, no economy or property systems, no multiplayer of any kind. Absence in a showcase is not absence in a game, but it is also not evidence of anything.
The full video is linked from the trailers page, and every follow-up detail lands in news.