The GTA 6 Ultimate Edition does not unlock at once, and you can upgrade whenever

The Ultimate Edition of Grand Theft Auto 6 costs $99.99 against $79.99 for the standard game, and the twenty dollars buys a list of vehicles, weapons, outfits and a salon. What almost nobody mentions is how any of it actually reaches you.

It doesn't arrive in a lump at midnight. Rockstar's own description is that the Ultimate Edition is “an exclusive collection of items threaded across all aspects of Jason and Lucia's story”, and threaded is doing real work in that sentence.

The extras turn up as the story does

Reporting on the store listings describes the Ultimate content as becoming available as you progress through the story, with nothing unlocking all at once, and that matches Rockstar's own wording exactly.

So it's a pretty different product from the one most people think they're buying. You won't get a garage full of cars on launch night. You'll get a drip of items keyed to chapters you haven't reached yet, and if you bounce off the game in week one you'll never see most of it.

Whether that's good or bad depends entirely on how you play. Somebody who finishes the story gets a steady trickle of things that show up when they're actually useful. Somebody who buys the expensive edition to start strong has bought the wrong edition.

You can upgrade later, and that changes the maths

This is the bit that should decide it for most people. The store listings state that the Ultimate Edition Upgrade is available to standard edition owners to purchase separately at any time, including physical buyers once they've redeemed their download code.

So the twenty dollars doesn't have to be a launch-night decision. You can buy the standard game, play it, and decide in December whether the extras are worth it, by which point you'll know whether you're the kind of player who's going to reach the chapters they're threaded through.

There's no early access in the Ultimate Edition either. Nobody who buys it plays sooner. Everyone gets it at the same midnight for their store region, and no amount of money gets you in any earlier than that.

The pre-order pack is separate, and it's the one with a deadline

The Vintage Vice City Pack is a pre-order bonus on both editions, so it isn't an Ultimate exclusive. It contains the '55 Vapid Stanier and a garage to keep it in, period outfits and hairstyles for both leads, a tropical weapon pattern, and one free month of GTA+.

That last item's strange enough to flag. Grand Theft Auto 6 ships without an online mode, and GTA+ is the subscription attached to Grand Theft Auto Online. A free month of it is either a membership you'd spend in the old game, or a hint at what the subscription's going to become. Rockstar hasn't said which.

Everything in the Ultimate Edition

The side mission count we're not printing

Several write-ups say the Ultimate Edition includes two exclusive side missions. The most detailed edition breakdowns list only one, the Wyman classic car commission, and Rockstar hasn't published a number.

So we're saying one, because one has a source behind it, and we won't keep repeating the two. If a second one surfaces, we'll add it.

Which one to buy

If you want the extras and you know you'll finish the story, buy the Ultimate Edition. If you're not sure, buy the standard game, because the upgrade's available at any time and nothing in the expensive edition helps you on launch night.

And pre-order either one if you want the Stanier, because that pack's the only part of all this with a real deadline attached.