Yes, it's okay to get very excited about a small new look at GTA 6's stunning Vice City

To say that we are all feeling a little starved of Grand Theft Auto 6 news would be putting it mildly. It's been 408 days since Rockstar Games released the second trailer for GTA 6, leaving the world with little to do but fill the void with endless speculation.

If there's any one thing we can be certain about right now, it's that the GTA 6 release date isn't moving beyond the November 19, 2026, date that Rockstar confirmed late last year. The long-awaited pre-order surge is coming next week, on June 24, setting the stage for a summer of reveals. Questions surrounding the price, the future of GTA Online, and the delivery of a third trailer are likely to be answered pretty damned soon.

Rockstar officially revealed the pre-order date and cover art today, but it also sneakily updated the main GTA 6 website. A new piece of artwork depicting protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos in a loving embrace was made available for download, but the real draw is a seconds-long clip of a Vice City horizon that teases out an incredible depth to Rockstar's next virtual city.

This could hardly be considered new GTA 6 gameplay footage, but like I said – we're all hungry for more of anything. What I will say is that the dynamic image is a reminder of just how exceptional Grand Theft Auto sandboxes can be; Leonida is gradually revealing itself to be another diverse and vibrant space that will support near-endless amounts of carnage, experimentation, and role-play opportunities.

Let's examine what the camera is capturing as it draws through the sprawling landscape, pulling back to reveal a stunningly-detailed draw-distance. Through neon-hued skies we see multiple types of planes and helicopters occupying congested airspace. Pull back a little further and we see flashing lights, brightly-illuminated billboards, and a spinning ferris wheel. In every direction there seems to be headlights criss-crossing along winding streets and sprawling freeways.

There's a cruise ship docked in a harbor, a shipping container moving slowly as a variety of speedboats cut through still water beyond it. Eventually we meet towering apartment blocks, with individual homes lit. In their shadow, a bar with parasols being pulled down for the night, unoccupied swimming pools, and a pair setting up to play on a tennis court. Birds come into view as construction cranes dominate the foreground, and then nothing. Cut to black.

"Vice City, USA" says the text scrolling into view: "Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them. But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida – forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive."

Grand Theft Auto 6 is the most anticipated video game of the last decade. It's likely to be the best-selling entertainment product of all-time, and a powerhouse that can push players still enduring last-gen consoles to finally upgrade their PS4 or Xbox One to a PS5 or Xbox Series X. This thing is going to be massive, and it's small clips like this that tell us why.

Rockstar has delivered for long enough, and consistently enough, that we can know instinctively what we're going to go. Even these few seconds of a cityscape reveal a world of possibilities. Activities to pursue, planes to pilot, and boats to hijack. Congested streets are destined for high-speed pursuits, and a degree of general carnage that can only otherwise be served in the tired (but still excellent) GTA 5. It's been so long since the release of a new Grand Theft Auto game – almost 13 years – that I had almost forgotten why new instalments are so exciting.

All it took was a few seconds of ambience to remind me of a fact: Nobody makes more immersive virtual worlds than Rockstar North, and we're just months away from finding our way in its most ambitious, densely-packed, and reactive playspace to date.