GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X: release date, enhancements and news

When it releases later this month, GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X will bring an ‘expanded and enhanced’ version of the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto 5 to the latest generation of consoles.

Having originally released on Xbox 360 and PS3, GTA 5 is now around nine years old but this new version of the game and its online counterpart, GTA Online, intends to make the most of the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. 

What will the most powerful consoles on the market allow for? Well, Rockstar has told players that they can expect new graphics modes (three in total), HDR options, ray-tracing, faster load times, 3D audio and more besides. Whether or not these enhancements will be enough to tempt players remains to be seen but those who do make the jump from Xbox One and PS4 will, at least, be able to transfer their existing saves so that they’re not starting from scratch all over again. 

Now that development of GTA 6 has finally been confirmed as being “well underway”, you might be wondering why Rockstar is even bothering with this release. Well, GTA 5 and GTA Online are still hugely successful for Rockstar, so it’s not entirely shocking that the studio would want to bring that success to a third console generation if it has the power to do so.

Plus, while GTA 6 is definitely in development, we have no idea when it’ll release, so this expanded and enhanced edition of GTA 5 could still be the only new-gen GTA adventure we have for a while yet.

Want to know more? Read on for everything we know about GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X, including all the enhancements that have been confirmed so far.

[Update: Rockstar has confirmed the three graphics modes that will be available in GTA 5 Expanded and Enhanced. Read on to find out more about them.]

GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X: cut to the chase

• What is it? A remastered version of GTA 5 for PS5 and Xbox Series X
• When can I play it? March 15, 2022
• What can I play it on? PS5 and Xbox Series X

GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X release date and platforms

Rockstar has confirmed that GTA 5 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on March 15, 2022, with GTA Online also releasing for the consoles as a separate standalone edition. 

GTA 5 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S was initially meant to release on November 11, 2021, but Rockstar Games announced the upgraded edition of the game was delayed until March 2022 in September 2021. The new release date was then confirmed, alongside the announcement of GTA 6, in February 2022.

PlayStation owners have a significant advantage in all of this. If you play GTA Online on PS4, you’ll get GTA$1 million to spend in-game every month until the PS5 version of GTA launches. And when GTA Online’s standalone edition arrives on PS5 in March 2022, owners of the console will have three months to claim the game for free after release – until June 2022. That means that Xbox Series X/S owners will have to pay if they want to play the new version of GTA Online at launch, though a price hasn’t been disclosed just yet.

Rockstar has said that the expanded and enhanced editions of GTA 5 and GTA Online will be available digitally on March 15 though the PS5 console store and the Microsoft store, with pre-purchase and pre-load available on March 8. 

For those who prefer to pick up physical games, Rockstar has confirmed that physical releases are due in April, with more details on that to come.

GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X trailers

PlayStation Showcase 2021 trailer
A GTA 5 trailer was revealed during Sony’s PlayStation Showcase 2021 event. You can check it out below:

Announcement trailer
GTA 5 on PS5 was the first trailer revealed for the console during Sony’s Future of Gaming Event in June 2020. The intro, featuring Michael saying ‘Why did I move here? I guess it was the weather” parallels GTA 5’s famous first trailer in 2011. Check it out below:

GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X enhancements: what are they?

Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S will benefit from a range of technical improvements, visual upgrades and performance enhancements to “take full advantage of the latest hardware”.

In a blog post, Rockstar Games confirmed that both titles feature “new graphics modes with up to 4K resolution, up to 60 frames per second, texture and draw distance upgrades, HDR options and ray-tracing, as well as offering the technical advancements of the latest console generation with faster loading times, immersive 3D audio, platform-specific features like advanced haptic feedback, and much more.”

Another welcome feature is that players can transfer their save data from the PS4 and Xbox One to their more modern consoles, including their GTA Online characters. 

In a follow up post in early March, Rockstar dug into the enhancements with a little more specificity, detailing three graphics settings which will allow players to “tailor your gameplay experience for what matters most to you.”

The first mode is Fidelity Mode, which is “tuned for the highest visual quality”. In this mode PS5 and Xbox Series X players will get native 4K resolution and ray-tracing at 30 FPS, while Xbox Series S players will get the same but with upscaled 4K resolution, rather than native.  

Performance Mode is for those looking for “the most responsive gameplay experience”. It targets 60 FPS, with support for upscaled 4K resolution on PS5 and Xbox Series X, with 1080p resolution for the Series S. 

Finally, the PS5 and Xbox Series X also boast Performance RT mode. This is a hybrid of Performance and Fidelity modes, “supporting upscaled 4K resolution with ray tracing enabled and targeting 60 FPS.”

The post goes on to promise “across-the-board improvements including faster loading times, increased population and traffic variety, increased vegetation density, improved lighting quality across shadows, water reflections, and other elements. Plus improved anti-aliasing, motion-blur, highly detailed new explosions, fire, and much more.”

PlayStation 5 players will also see the game make use of the console’s DualSense controller, with “new levels of responsiveness with Haptic Feedback and dynamic resistance” via the controller’s adaptive triggers. This means “new sensations  to weather effects, directional damage, rough road surfaces, explosions and much more.”

In addition, the new version of GTA Online will feature “a range of improvements”, including the ability to skip the GTA 5 Story Mode prologue before jumping into Online and a new GTA Online Tutorial. 

This should make jumping into GTA Online much easier for newbies, with new GTA Online players now able to enter Career Builder. This is “designed expressly for new players – or anyone who wants to reset their character and get a fresh start” and gives them an helpful leg up in the criminal underworld of San Andreas. With this system, players get a GTA $4,000,000 windfall to select essentials including Business Properties, Vehicles, and Weapons.

Where is GTA 6?

GTA 6 has now officially been announced by Rockstar Games. It doesn’t have a release date just yet but you can check out our GTA 6 guide for all the juicy details we have on the next Grand Theft Auto game.

GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X: news and rumors

Story Mode migration available now

Rockstar has confirmed that “PS4 and Xbox One players will be able to transfer both their GTAV Story Mode progress and their current GTA Online characters and progression to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, or across console platforms, with a one-time migration for each.”

This process is available for players to use now when it comes to Story Mode, with Rockstar saying that players can begin transferring Story Mode progress “by uploading a save to the Rockstar Games Social Club.” Starting this off is simply a matter of entering GTA V on your current console account, going to the Game tab of the Pause menu and, from there, selecting the Upload Save Game option. Rockstar notes that “you can only store one game save per platform at a time and saves will remain available to download for 90 days.”

Transferring GTA Online characters and progression will be available on March 15, also using the Rockstar Games Social Club, with Rockstar confirming that “migration includes any Characters, GTA$, Progression, Stats, Vehicles, Properties, Weapons, Clothing, and Player-Created Jobs”, with the caveat that “Players will only be able to transfer their purchased GTA$ when migrating from PS4 to PS5, or from Xbox One to Xbox Series X/S.”

Vehicle upgrades for Online
Rockstar has announced on Twitter that when GTA Online hits the latest consoles, “select vehicles will be upgradable” on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game, with “all-new speed improvements and more”.

“These special upgrades will be available only on PS5 and Series X/S versions of GTA 5,” the Tweet confirmed, adding, “stay tuned for more details.”

The tweet doesn’t go into a huge amount of detail, though a February 2022 blog post explained a little more about vehicle upgrades in the standalone PS5 and Xbox SeriesX/S versions of the game. 

According to the post, “The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of GTA Online also include the new Hao’s Special Works auto shop, located within the LS Car Meet, which will allow players to upgrade select vehicles (5 new vehicles and 5 existing vehicles at launch) for elite driving performance that takes full advantage of the upgraded power of new console hardware.”

Not a ‘simple port’
Speaking during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, in March 2021 (via VGC), Take-Two’s CEO, Strauss Zelnick, explained that the company doesn’t necessarily see remasters becoming a bigger part of the company’s strategy going forward, it plans to approach any potential remasters differently from its competitors.

“Remastering has always been a part of the strategy,” Zelnik said. “We’ve done differently than the competition – we don’t just port titles over, we actually take the time to do the very best job we can making the title different for the new release, for the new technology that we’re launching it on.”

“So, we improve the technology, we upgrade the visuals, and we make performance enhancements,” Zelnik continued. “And that’s why I think our remastered titles typically do so well.”

“We’ve done great with the Mafia series, for example, and Grand Theft Auto [V] is now heading into its third generation which is incredible”, Zelnik said of the upcoming GTA 5 remaster. “It was a standard-bearer when it was launched, it continued to be the standard-bearer in the second generation, we’ll see how Grand Theft Auto does in the next generation. Obviously, I’m confident that Rockstar is going to deliver just a great experience, but you can’t do that if you’re just doing a simple port.”

Using Rockstar’s RAGE engine?
There have been rumors that the game could use Rockstar’s refined RAGE engine, used in the development of Red Dead Redemption 2.

The rumors come from Rockstar insider ‘Tez2’ (Via Wccftech) who posted on  GTAForums that new GTA 5 game data makes reference to the RAGE engine rather than GTA 5’s original engine. Tez2 does also note, however, that this could mean that the game’s UI will run on the new engine while the rest of the game will still use its original engine. 

Writing on the forum, Tez2 says “Found out new structs that were added with the recent update relating to the standalone version and one of them is “rage::fwuiMessageBase”, which is from RDR2’s RAGE version, so that seems to go along what @Spider-Vice & @uNi stated, that the enhanced edition is likely to utilize RDR2’s RAGE version. However, it could just be that the UI would utilize RDR2’s base code, while the rest remains the same.”

Rockstar has not officially confirmed this rumor, even this close to the game’s release.

• PS5 vs Xbox Series X: which console should you buy?