About this report
Spanish creator ElRubius — one of the biggest YouTubers in the Spanish-speaking world — was flown to Rockstar North to play Grand Theft Auto VI hands-on, guided by animation director Rob Nelson. He later recapped everything he saw in a video, and the community transcribed the details.
Treat this as hands-on impressions of an unreleased build, not confirmed features. Rubius was told directly that anything shown in trailers is still subject to change before release, and he flagged himself that some of the more extreme moments (gore, nudity) may not survive to the final game. We've folded his account into GTA Codex's own wording and cross-checked it against what Rockstar has officially shown. Where something is uncertain, we say so.
It runs on a base PS5 — and it looks it shouldn't
Rubius couldn't believe the demo was running on a standard PS5 and initially assumed it was a high-end PC. Even at 30 FPS, he says it never felt slow — the gameplay read as smooth and cinematic.
- The lighting reminded him of Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing — the way light lands on bodies, hair and the environment, and how it shifts as you move in and out of buildings.
- Camera work during cinematics is noticeably improved over what we've seen.
- He stressed that the Extended Look is a tiny fraction of the game — the whole reason Rockstar invited creators was to show far more than the public has seen.
Everything in the trailers is real — and the current build looks even better.
— ElRubius, recapping the Rockstar North session
Interiors are real spaces, not menus
The biggest structural takeaway: interiors exist in the world in real time, with no loading screens bridging inside and outside.
- Safehouses and buildings are highly interactive — doors, fridges, light switches and more.
- Look out a window and you see the actual world outside. Leave, and you physically walk out — sometimes down several flights of stairs — with no cut to black.
- When Rubius asked to find a helicopter, they rode an elevator all the way to a rooftop in real time rather than teleporting to the top floor. (Helicopters can spawn on tall buildings, but not always — you have to get lucky.)
The emphasis throughout was on roleplay-style immersion: the world behaves like a place you inhabit, not a set of loading gates.
The world is dense, reactive and full of events
Rubius kept getting distracted by emergent events on the way to wherever he was headed — the world constantly throws things at you.
- A park full of NPCs doing their own things: jogging, playing basketball, chatting, lying down reading. An e-scooter was parked there to ride.
- A woman walking her dog: getting close lets you ask the owner to pet the dog — and it can go either way. In his case the dog barked at Jason and the owner started swearing at him; as he walked off, his arm brushed the leash, which had realistic physics.
- A naked man in the middle of the street begging for a ride home — a full event Rubius refused to spoil, recommending you help the guy when you find it.
- Rubius confirmed there is full nudity in the game (he wasn't sure it'd all make the final cut).
- A traffic jam that built up dynamically, with a cloud of smoke ahead marking a crashed car — it belonged to two masked robbers whose loot was scattered across the road. Kill them, take the loot, and bystanders call the cops.
Map scale: Rubius relays that the map is roughly 3× the size of Red Dead Redemption 2 and is an island. (Rockstar hasn't given an official figure, so treat the multiplier as his paraphrase.)
Combat, chaos and consequences
The police and physics are far more aggressive and grounded than in GTA V.
- Grab a rifle from your car near a random event (Rubius did, during a cop detaining a drunk) and NPCs react to the weapon, backing away.
- In a chase, police get increasingly aggressive, ramming you until your car is useless. When Lucia stepped out, a police cruiser violently ran her over — a brutal ragdoll, then the Wasted screen.
- Rubius saw an NPC's head come off from a shotgun blast — and openly wondered whether that level of gore stays in the final release.
- Hit an NPC with a vehicle and their belongings fly off — phones, accessories and the like.
New vehicle-combat interactions stood out:
- On the e-scooter, Rob Nelson pressed attack and Jason threw a kick. In a car, the same button lets Jason fling the door open into someone — new to the series.
- You can loot car trunks, shoot a car's engine to disable it, and hide bodies or yourself inside a trunk.
- Focus Mode (the Dead Eye-style ability) can highlight a vehicle's weak points.
On whether roleplay chores get tedious, Rubius asked Rob directly about refuelling cars. Rob said the RP systems are balanced between GTA V and RDR2 — e.g. cars take a long time to actually run out of fuel — so they add texture without becoming a slog.
Jason and Lucia: switching, trust and abandonment
Character switching works like GTA V — no loading screen. When Rubius swapped to Lucia, she was at her place, lying down on her phone. He also noted the two protagonists have distinct body types in this build (Jason muscular, Lucia heavier around the lower body).
The relationship reacts to how you treat your partner:
- Abandon your partner during a chase or heist and they get angry — it hurts your relationship. At one point Jason flew off in a helicopter having accidentally left Lucia behind, then texted her: "Hey, aren't you forgetting something? 😂"
- Rubius asked what happens if Jason visits the strip club. Rob said Lucia can come along, their relationship is fairly "chill" and built on trust, and Jason can also go alone with no consequence.
An emergent date at a packed beach
Doubting the beach-crowd screenshot was real, Rubius asked to ride out there. Rob explained crowd density depends on time of day, grabbed a bike, and took both characters over — getting sidetracked by events the whole way.
- The beach was packed with NPCs, plus dogs and other animals. Rob then confirmed there is a compendium.
- The sand reacted realistically to the characters' weight and movement.
- The two shared an emergent date, walking and holding hands.
- They spotted a jet ski, stole it, and Rob floored it up the beach — Rubius noticing again how NPC belongings scatter on impact.
Heists: plan in 3D, then take it manually
Heists are described as a primary focus you can tackle whenever you want. The in-game map is fully 3D and doubles as a planning tool.
- You can see building entrances and an estimated payout for robbing a business — a jewelry store showed roughly $15,000–$40,000.
- Robbing that store, both characters entered the front: Jason held the cashier at gunpoint while Lucia independently handled the other civilians.
- A back-room safe could be opened multiple ways — exploring the location turns up clues; here they found a note with the code.
- The loot inside was fully physical: diamonds, cash and gold that Jason grabbed one item at a time, each with its own animation, and bagged.
The bottom line
If this account holds up, Rubius describes a GTA that's less a series of missions and more a living, seamless place: real-time interiors, reactive crowds, brutal physics, deep partner and animal interactions, and heists you plan in 3D and execute by hand. It's a secondhand look at a build Rockstar itself calls unfinished — but the direction is unmistakable.
Related: everything you can do in GTA 6 · GTA 6 heists, robberies and jobs · combat, aiming & weapon handling.