Edge watched 90 unscripted minutes of GTA 6: the map that "adds up" GTA IV, V and RDR2, the WAINK and Scooter Bros apps, and the unanswered marriage question

In the Edinburgh demo, Rob Nelson missed a stinger strip, was caught by a police dog and showed two car-thief apps. Edge also heard that the map is "nearly as large as" GTA IV, V and RDR2 combined. What each source says and what went unanswered.

Rob Nelson missed the stinger strip, flew over the handlebars of a stolen motorcycle and, when a police German Shepherd caught up with him, the whole room begged him not to shoot the dog. The scene is part of the roughly 90 minutes of unscripted GTA 6 that Edge watched at Rockstar North's Edinburgh studio, with Nelson (co-head of the studio and head of development) on the controller. The piece, by Simon Parkin, is the 16-page cover story of Edge 430, and it went free on GamesRadar+ at 12:01 a.m. UK time on October 29.

A note on what we read: Edge's page on GamesRadar+ came through truncated for us. The quotes below come from two outlets that reproduce the text, TheGTA6News and LibertyCity, and the gameplay details were cross-checked against VGTimes and TechWiser. Where they differ, the text says so.

A map that "adds up" three games

The line that travelled furthest is Rockstar's own, as quoted by Edge: Leonida's landmass is "nearly as large as the playable maps of GTAIV, GTAV and RDR2 combined" (via TheGTA6News). Aaron Garbut, the other co-head, set the studio's tone: "I feel like we've built a pyramid on Everest" (via LibertyCity). He stresses density more than size: according to TheGTA6News, every back alley gets the same level of detail.

That line adds up three games, but Rockstar had already given two other comparisons, according to Rockstar Report: about twice the size of GTA V's map (Garbut, to Game Informer; TheGTA6News and LibertyCity repeat it as what Edge reports) and three times RDR2's (to the New York Times). Do they fit? A calculation of our own, just to check: if the map is worth 2 GTA Vs and also 3 RDR2s, RDR2 would be two thirds of a GTA V. For "GTA IV + GTA V + RDR2" to land near 2 GTA Vs, GTA IV would have to be a little over a third of GTA V. That is plausible, but it is our arithmetic: each comparison may measure different things (playable area, total area, with or without water), and Rockstar has not given a figure in square kilometers. The 150 to 200 km² estimates we mentioned in September came from fans and remain unconfirmed.

Two criminal apps and a fuel tank

What stands out for anyone who plays GTA is the change to car theft. According to VGTimes and LibertyCity, cars have fuel gauges and engine-health indicators, and refueling is quick. A stolen car may carry a tracker, an armed driver or a nearly empty tank. Edge shows two phone apps on Jason and Lucia's phones:

WAINK lists the models fences want, with each one's security systems. The payout depends on the car's condition.
Scooter Bros brings your personal vehicle to you, for a fee, with weapons in the trunk (VGTimes and TechWiser).

The police follow the same logic. We have already covered the Criminal Profile and the Heat system in a piece based on Nelson's IGN interview; what Edge adds is the demonstration: the police build a description (face, clothes, partner, weapons, cameras), icons on screen show what they know, and dropping your weapon in certain situations can keep a wanted level from starting. The Criminal Profile, for its part, runs from "Professional" to "Irredeemable", with angel and devil icons, and whoever shoots first ends up with a violent profile (LibertyCity). The accounts differ on one point of the chase: LibertyCity says Nelson fled with Lucia on the motorcycle, while VGTimes has Jason pinned by the dog. Without Edge's original text, we cannot settle who was where.

The dog smell and other small things

Some details show up in one account or another. VGTimes says one house had dog mess on the floor, that Jason reacted to the smell, and that this reaction, built for one scene, was later generalized into a system used elsewhere. People also react to how you carry a weapon: TheGTA6News says pedestrians notice a shotgun held in your hands. There are about 600,000 pedestrian animations, made by a dedicated team that LibertyCity places in Los Angeles. Early in the demo, Jason drinks coffee for stamina and a protein shake for health, and lights a cigarette from his inventory.

Day and night last longer than in GTA V. Nelson said that in the previous game "everything felt too fast" (TheGTA6News), but according to VGTimes Edge gives no numbers. There are buses and trains, and Edge mentions weather as a factor for boats and aircraft.

What Nelson did not answer

Jason and Lucia's marriage went unanswered: Nelson neither confirmed nor denied it, in both accounts that touch on it (VGTimes and LibertyCity). The couple's bond has a four-level closeness scale that rises with beach walks, bike rides, the gym and drives, and Nelson summed it up: it is "yours to keep or yours to lose" (TheGTA6News). Nor do the sources we read give the exact length of the day and night, how far a tank of fuel goes or how many interiors exist.

For readers here, the essential point is that the full text is free on GamesRadar+, but in English. The game comes out on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.