Saint Denis is the closest thing we have to a GTA 6 preview

Booted up RDR2 again last night. Not even for a full playthrough, just to ride around Saint Denis and soak it in. And man, that city still hits different.

It's not huge. You can cross it in a couple minutes on horseback. But every street feels packed. NPCs aren't just standing there like mannequins. They're arguing, sweeping, hawking goods, getting robbed, reacting to you. Some are working, some are just shooting the breeze with each other. The ambient noise alone is a whole soundscape. It's the most lived-in city Rockstar's ever built, and it was running on a base PS4 from 2013.

That's what gives me so much confidence for GTA 6. We've already seen glimpses in the trailers: the beach with dozens of people, the club scenes, that group selfie moment, NPCs playing volleyball. Some folks are skeptical, saying it's all scripted trailer magic. But if Rockstar could pull off Saint Denis on ancient hardware, what's stopping them from doing even more on PS5 and Series X?

I'm not expecting every corner of Leonida to be that dense. Vice City proper, sure. Port Gellhorn, probably. The smaller towns might be quieter, which is fine. But the idea that we'll have multiple cities each with their own version of that Saint Denis energy? That's wild. And the random events in RDR2 were already top-tier. Multiply that by modern tech and six years of development, and I think we're in for something special.

I keep seeing people worry that the trailers oversold the world. I get it, we've been burned before. But Rockstar's track record with open worlds is basically untouchable. RDR2 still looks better than most games coming out today. GTA 6 is going to be their first ground-up next-gen title. They've had all the time they need. I'm not worried.

So yeah, if you're feeling the doubt creep in, go boot up Saint Denis. Walk around for an hour. Then remember that was 2018. November 19th can't come soon enough.

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Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.