Some things never change. Gravity makes things fall. CEOs are greedy. And of course, video game fans online will nitpick screenshots and trailers endlessly until a game is out, looking for secrets to share or flaws to catalog. And that’s happening with Grand Theft Auto 6 as fans debate a supposed graphical downgrade.
On June 24, Rockstar Games finally revealed that GTA 6 will cost $80. (Or, if you want everything, $100.) Alongside this news, Rockstar shared a huge amount of new screenshots of the game, which will only be available digitally at launch, with even “physical” copies simply containing a download code. And as you can expect, GTA fans began going over those new images with a fine-toothed comb. I did this myself and ended up finding a strange lore mistake. But others are, as you might expect, comparing screenshots and claiming that Rockstar Games had done the most dreaded, terrible, evil thing a game developer could ever do: Downgrade the visuals! We’ve seen this song and dance before…
Across Reddit, Twitter, and the GTA Forums, you can find people comparing buildings, bushes, and characters’ beards in an attempt to argue that GTA 6 doesn’t look as good today as it did the last time Rockstar showed it off. A lot of the debate is focused on a safehouse seen in the second trailer and now seen in a newly shared official screenshot. Some claim that the new version looks worse.
The GTA 6 graphics have been downgraded so much look#gta6 #GTAVI pic.twitter.com/KU9Qehr5dw
— GTA6 Insider Hub (@ShaarifRehan334) June 24, 2026
When people pushed back and pointed out that these images are showing two different times of day, might have different weather activity, and aren’t from the same angle, the downgrade believers began pointing out details like the bushes in front of the house.
“Look at the vegetation around Jason’s house (near motorcycle), POV is different, but cmon,” posted someone on the GTA Forums in a thread all about the supposed downgrade.
“The sun is in a completely different location and casting completely different shadows,” replied another user. “The lower sun is painting the scene in a yellow light, which changes the colour of the entire scene as well.” This same person then later posted gifs from Cyberpunk 2077 showing how the time of day can vastly alter the look of a scene and, yes, bushes as well.
“I hope I’m crazy,” posted a user on Twitter. “I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m seeing a slight downgrade in the textures, and especially the characters’ hair.” They shared images of the main character Jason and his beard and hair from past trailers with images shared today by Rockstar.
I have to admit, I’m starting to get a bit worried about the actual graphics in GTA 6… 😟
Comparing last year’s trailer to a recent screenshot, while the lighting is different, let’s be honest: the shadows, the colors, etc., look significantly worse. Some of the foliage even… pic.twitter.com/4bVFdwjbLM
— Zap Actu GTA6 (@zapactugta6) June 24, 2026
“The downgrade is massive,” replied someone else. “But oh well, it’s clear that what they had shown were just trailers.” Again, others replied stating that different screens feature different camera angles, lighting passes, and even poses. That hasn’t stopped people from continuing to debate the alleged downgrade, though many are likely just doing it because modern algorithms reward engagement, and negative, trollish posts comparing visuals are a great way to farm replies and shares.
As others have argued, I don’t think that the appearance of Jason’s beard in various screenshots is a great way to prove that GTA 6 has suffered some massive visual downgrade, or that Rockstar was lying in past trailers.
Rather, it seems to simply be that his hair is rendered a lot better in images where he’s close to the camera than in images where he’s further away. This makes a lot of sense as Rockstar (and other devs) lower the quality of some details and characters as they move away from the camera and the player’s direct line of sight. If anything, Jason’s beard and some of the other “downgrades” players are spotting are just proof that Rockstar is, as it always has, showing us real, in-engine images and trailers.
So again, I’m not convinced Rockstar has downgraded GTA 6. Instead, most of these differences can be attributed to different lighting conditions, rendering limitations, and the simple fact that games in development change over time. Details are added, removed, tweaked, and so on. Directly comparing images from an unreleased game taken across multiple years of trailers and screenshots will almost always reveal differences. In fact, a lot of the new GTA 6 screenshots look better to my eye than the earliest version of the game we saw years ago in the first trailer.
I also look at all of these screenshots, even the “ugly downgraded” ones, and think back to what games looked like even just a decade ago. It’s hard for me to get too mad at what GTA 6 looks like, especially because I’d rather games not take 20 years to make, as devs are forced to perfectly recreate reality in 8K.
So no, there has not been a massive visual downgrade ahead of GTA 6‘s November 19 release on PS5 and Xbox. Now, let’s all take a moment to not think about GTA 6 for a few hours before millions of people start pre-ordering the game on June 25.
