KekRaptor: GTA V Next Gen to Have 4K Ray-Traced Shark Cards

Developer Rockstar North Publisher Rockstar Games Release Date September 17, 2013 Genre Open World, Third Person Shooter Platforms PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, Playstation 3 Monetization Cosmetic DLC Purchase (Some links may be affiliated) Direct2Drive Steam Amazon Green Man Gaming Play Asia

And Online Load Times Reduced to 4 Minutes

When GTA V was announced for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, it drew no small amount of derision. This should come as no small surprise for pretty much anyone. After all, the main reason why people want next-gen consoles is to play new games, not ancient relics. Remember, GTA V originally came out for the PS3 and Xbox 360, was updated for current-gen systems and PCs, and will soon be part of next-gen libraries. The game is so old at this point that if it were a child, you would probably be sending it to elementary school.

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Rockstar Games evidently didn't appreciate people making fun of their cash cow, so they released some details on how the next-gen port of GTA V will differ from current- and last-gen versions. Naturally, they started by addressing the PS5 GTA Online exclusivity deals.

While it is true that PS5 users will be able to get three months of GTA Online for free, Rockstar wants to assure Xbox Series X and PC players that they'll be getting their own bonuses for upgrading. If you're planning on upgrading to the Xbox Series X version, you'll get exclusive access to "the most gangster of vehicles," the tow truck, for free for the same three months. PC players, meanwhile, will get the privilege of three months of exclusive cheater bans.

In addition, Rockstar has officially confirmed that GTA V will be able to run at 4K 120FPS. What this means in-game is that you can expect much rounder looking corners, sharper looking edges, and tattoos that don't look like they're charcoal smudges. Shiny bits will be shinier, dirt will be dirtier, and phones will be phonier. Even the green juice in your apartment has been painstakingly updated to have more realistic sludge physics. Most importantly, the menu, text, and the Shark Card store thumbnails will all be updated to glorious 4K 120 FPS with ray tracing enabled.

The menus won't be the only thing that are getting a next-gen face lift though. Special attention has been given to environmental clutter. For instance, trash cans, garbage bags, and the trash inside of them, have been placed more generously around the city. But these aren't ordinary game trash cans where you drive into them and confetti comes out. These are next-gen GTA V trash cans, which means that they too will be 4K ray-tracing compliant with physics-enabled garbage that realistically bounces onto cars.

If you think that all these graphical updates will affect load times, think again. In a rare admission of fault, Rockstar confessed that current-gen load times have been a bit excessive, especially if you're trying to get into a GTA Online lobby. Thanks to the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X though, these load times have been cut down "drastically." Internal tests have apparently been promising, showing a reduction in average load times from an agonizing five minutes for current-gen consoles to a much more tolerable four minutes for next-gen consoles.

gta v lester — "Wait, we're assaulting a bunker for money when we can make *how much* by developing a game with microtransactions and then re-releasing it every couple of years?!"

In fact, Rockstar is so confident in these next-gen upgrades that they allegedly reassigned the secret team that was working on GTA VI to help modernize GTA V. Indeed, almost all of the 4K textures, physics effects, and ray-tracing features for the new environmental garbage have been the result of "thousands" of hours of work by what is now the former GTA VI team. Unfortunately, this will likely make GTA VI a next-next-gen title at the earliest.

While it sounds like terrible news for those who were eagerly waiting for GTA VI, Rockstar wants to assure us that the updated version of GTA V will be worth the wait. They promise that the game will look so new that you won't even notice that you're paying full-retail price for the same exact story, listening to the same exact jokes, and doing the same exact soul-sucking grind for Online money for the fourth platform in a row.

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