GTA 6 is targeting 30 FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X. The same goes for the beefier PS5 Pro, which can now sit another exclusive on the shelf alongside Sony's marketing deal for the game: ray-traced shadows that have seen some people shell out $1,300. This is all fine and expected news, yet I'm saddled by the same tiny disappointment I feel every time a big console release targets 30 FPS.
It's not that I'll turn my nose at any game that isn't running at 60 FPS or higher, filthy PC gamer that I am. But if we're talking preferences, yeah, I do wish everything ran at 60 FPS at 1440p or below. I'd gladly accept lower graphical fidelity as a tradeoff for that and, more pertinently, I'll happily wait to play GTA 6 on PC if it means better performance.
The case for 60 FPS
This is easy for me to say, of course. I didn't have to move mountains to get a game of this scale running at 30 FPS to begin with. It might sound easy to put fidelity and frame rate on a scale and just subtract material until the FPS side rises, but I know it's not that simple, even if cuts could surely be made.
It's not just about the visible sweat, intricate clothing, innumerable environmental wrinkles, granular animations, or ray-traced shadows – all the little details that people at Rockstar have presumably achieved through blood sacrifice. This might actually be the best-looking game ever made by many metrics. But GTA 6 also has to handle dense NPC crowds, a sprawling city, seamless character switching, and all the unseen systems supporting that experience. That, to me, is the truly important, gameplay-affecting stuff.
I never care about graphics in any way that matters, and I always care about smoothness
It all amounts to more things for that frame rate to haul, and Rockstar seemingly chose 30 FPS with all the fixins' over higher FPS with all the sacrifices. I understand and respect that. Devs should make what they want, as ludicrously complex as they want it to be. But on that scale, my taste leans heavily toward frame rate for a few reasons.
Console generational leaps are getting smaller. This generation has, as far as I'm concerned, had only two real difference-makers: M.2 NVMe SSDs that dramatically improve loading times, and the spread of performance-focused graphic settings (or performance modes). As you may have guessed, I go for performance mode every single time.
Some games benefit more from having higher frame rates than others, but maximum FPS is always my pick until I hit 60. A fast-paced martial arts game like Phantom Blade Zero would be seriously hurt by a low or inconsistent frame rate, for instance. But I'm currently playing Persona 3 Reload, and its turn-based combat and simple environments aren't really bothered as long as the frame rate is half-decent and stable. But the choice is still simple: I never care about graphics in any way that matters, and I always care about smoothness. GTA 6 isn't a frenetic wuxia fiesta, but its driving and shooting definitely push it toward the more FPS-sensitive camp in my mind.
There's a point where I lose interest in graphical improvements, and that point came at least 10 years ago. I can appreciate a cutting-edge game, whether it's GTA 6 NPCs whose calves flex with each step or a huge RPG like Cyberpunk 2077 with every setting cranked to the moon. But if AAA games eternally looked like late-gen PS4 releases, I honestly wouldn't complain. My threshold for game that looks good is comfortably below that, and an art style far removed from realism is more likely to grab me anyway. Now and forever, I'm more interested in games that run better and console gaming that feels, not necessarily looks, more like my PC experience (again, M.2s really helped with this). Hell, right now I just want consoles that people can actually afford, and pushing hardware to fruitlessly advance graphics won't get us those.
Every generation, I think these will surely be the systems to normalize 60 FPS, and I'm consistently let down by games going in the opposite direction for visuals that don't, and will never, move me. In all graphical discussions, my mind goes to an early Uncharted: Drake's Fortune demo showing how water would convincingly dampen Nathan Drake's clothes and then dry in the sun. Nearly 20 years later, it feels like we are still hung up on the equivalent of Nathan Drake getting wet even though this detail didn't mean squat to the experience of Uncharted and this kind of thing is infinitely less novel and relevant today. The real or imagined title of 'best-looking game ever made' has never meant less, and a significantly uglier version of GTA 6 would still assuredly blow my socks off. I'll tell you what would really impress me: a promise that this runs at twice the frame rate of GTA 5, a 13-year-old game.
