Edge watched 90 minutes of GTA 6 at Rockstar North: police that recognize you, fuel, WAINK and trains

Edge issue 430 is out with Simon Parkin’s visit to Rockstar North in Edinburgh, a few weeks before launch. Rob Nelson picked up a PS5 controller and played about 90 minutes of the current GTA 6 build, with no script or planned route, while Parkin watched and interviewed Nelson, Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker. The journalist didn’t play, so everything below is what Rockstar showed or explained. Edge on GamesRadar+

Heat now tracks what the police know about you: your physical description, whether you’re alone or with your partner, your clothes, whether a CCTV camera caught you and the weapon you’re carrying, shown as icons at the top of the screen. Splitting up with Lucia, changing clothes or dropping the weapon makes you harder to recognize. In the demo, the chase ended with a spike strip and a police dog. The full system is in the GTA 6 police guide. Edge

Every vehicle has a fuel gauge and an engine health readout. Refueling is quick and a tank goes a long way, so it isn’t pitched as a constant interruption. The Scooter Bros app brings one of your cars for a small fee: it shows up within seconds and the driver leaves on a scooter. Your weapons ride in the trunk. Edge

The WAINK app lists the models fences want, with their security level and whether they carry a tracker. Expensive cars can ping their location to the police, owners can report the theft and part of the payout depends on the car’s condition when you deliver it. What we already knew about stealing cars is in the car theft guide. Edge

GTA 6 has working bus and train systems. Phil Hooker told Edge he’s obsessed with making sure they always turn up, that he knows every route by heart and that he often rides a bus just to watch the city go by. Edge

Clouds move independently based on wind, humidity, fog, time of day and season, so it can rain on one street while a storm builds in the distance. Roads get wet and dry out, wind shapes the waves and islands shelter the water, and bad weather buffets aircraft and can even damage them slightly. Pedestrians look for cover. To bring them to life, a team in Los Angeles created about 600,000 animations; that figure counts movements, and Rockstar hasn’t said how many pedestrians there are. Every pedestrian has traits like temperament, aggression or what they’ve seen: in the demo, a man unclipped his dog and sent it at Jason because Jason stared at him. Edge

Aaron Garbut says there are “an order of magnitude more interiors” than in Rockstar’s earlier games. Homes have family photos and the mess of whoever lives there, and Jason grimaced in a filthy house thanks to a smell system originally built for a single scene. Garbut gives no number and doesn’t say every building can be entered. On size, Rockstar repeats that the map is about twice GTA V’s and adds that Leonida’s landmass is nearly as big as the GTA IV, GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 maps combined. The other map figures are in the GTA 6 map guide. Edge

Criminal Profile runs from Professional to Irredeemable, with angel and devil icons, and counts whether you incapacitate or intimidate instead of killing. Rockstar says it shapes how the story unfolds. Jason and Lucia’s closeness is tracked on a four-point scale that rises as they spend time together: beach walks, cycling, the gym (with a membership) or a drive. You can shape the relationship but can’t make them quit crime, and Nelson wouldn’t confirm or deny whether they can get married. The characters and the relationship are in the characters guide. Edge

Sometimes you’ll have to raise money before the next job, by robbing a gas station or a jewelry store or filling car orders, which adds natural breaks between missions. GTA V’s wide roads have been narrowed to “a more believable size,” in Nelson’s words, and the day-night cycle is substantially longer, because GTA V’s timings felt “too fast” for this level of detail. Edge

What Edge doesn’t confirm

Detail	Status
That Edge played the game	No: Rob Nelson played
A public video of the 90 minutes	Doesn’t exist
Fuel use per car or what happens on empty	No details
How many interiors or what share of buildings	No number
Map area in square miles	Not published
Jason and Lucia getting married	Neither confirmed nor ruled out
Number of endings tied to Criminal Profile	Unconfirmed
Performance or frame rate on PS5 and Xbox	No details

GTA 6 launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Unlock times are in the GTA 6 release date guide.

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Sources

Edge 430 on GamesRadar+ — Grand Theft Auto VI exclusive, by Simon Parkin (October 29, 2026)

Last verified: October 29, 2026.