It looks like Grand Theft Auto 6 won’t come to PC when it releases in 2025. Developer Rockstar hasn’t confirmed that’s the case, but a press release put out alongside the trailer said the game would release on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, with no mention of PC.
Unsurprisingly, there’s outrage. PCGamer says that there’s “no technical reason” for GTA 6 not coming to PC at launch, while TechRadar’s Matt Hanson says the lack of a PC release confirmed his “worst fears.” Those are just comments among professional reporters, too. Lord help you if you dive into the deluge of Reddit and NeoGaf threads.
There is a technical reason GTA 6 likely won’t come to PC at launch, though. And for as much fuss as it’s causing right now, it’s probably the best decision if you want to enjoy the game properly.
Be careful what you wish for
The irony isn’t lost on me that PC gamers are calling for a rushed PC version in a year that has seen some of the worst PC releases ever. The idea behind a triple-platform release when GTA 6 arrives in 2025 is that the PS5 and Xbox Series X are essentially PCs. They’re both built on an AMD APU, so it should be fairly simple for Rockstar to release the game on all platforms at the same time.
That’s a problematic idea. First, consoles are not PCs. They may use PC hardware, and the Xbox Series X even uses the DirectX 12 API that PCs use, but they are fundamentally not PCs. They’re closed platforms with a set hardware configuration, which is the exact opposite of what a PC offers.
Rockstar may get the game running well with that particular configuration, but how does it work with different versions of Windows? GTA 6 may be able to use the eight Zen 2 CPU cores in the PS5 and Xbox Series X, but how does it scale up to 16 cores or scale down to 4? What about Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs, the latter of which comprise most gaming PCs? That’s three questions, and we haven’t even gotten into the dedicated decompression hardware on the consoles or the fuss that drivers can cause.
Given that all three platforms use an x86 architecture, yes, Rockstar could release GTA 6 on PC alongside console with minimal work. That doesn’t mean it would be any good. There may be backlash now, but imagine what it would look like if Rockstar did release a technical mess of a game on PC just so it could show up alongside consoles.
There are other reasons Rockstar could delay a PC release. Accusations of double dipping on eager players could hold some truth, and there’s some speculation that Rockstar wants to avoid modding mishaps. Those explanations can still be true, but they aren’t big enough reasons to overcome the technical elephant that is releasing a game on PC.
Always console first
I’m not sure why the lack of a PC release at launch comes as a surprise to anyone. Rockstar games have always been focused on consoles. Both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 released on consoles first, and Rockstar doesn’t have a great track record with PC releases for its older titles.
This has always been a console-first franchise. It took almost a year for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to come to PC, and around six months for Grand Theft Auto 4 to show up on the platform. The same was true for Grand Theft Auto Vice City and Grand Theft Auto 3. The only game that has released simultaneously for all platforms is Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy in 2021, which was a widely criticized technical fumble.
Technically, the first two games in the franchise released on PC alongside console, but we’re talking about a completely different era of gaming at that point. For the last two decades for Rockstar, consoles have always come first before PC.
I would understand the hoopla if Rockstar usually released its games on PC alongside console, but it never has.
I’m eager to play GTA 6 just like everyone else, and as a PC gamer, I’m disappointed I’ll have to wait to play it on my main platform. That doesn’t mean Rockstar is without reason for delaying a PC port. If the game doesn’t come to PC at release, hopefully, it gives the title more time to cook so it doesn’t arrive on PC half-baked.
