Racing and motorsport

Racing's been part of Grand Theft Auto for as long as the series has had cars worth stealing, and Rockstar has confirmed it for Grand Theft Auto 6 twice: in its own words to Game Informer, and in play in the Extended Look it put out in August.

Two races on tarmac

About 17 minutes 40 seconds into Rockstar's Extended Look there's a circuit race: sixteen cars in sponsor liveries on a street track lined with catch fencing and palm trees. The readout in the corner shows lap 1 of 2, the player in 10th of 16, and a running timer. The car being driven is a white race saloon with a big rear wing.

About three minutes later there's a night street race through ordinary Vice City streets, six cars, with the player's wrapped coupe running purple underglow. This time the readout gives progress as a percentage instead of laps, and 5th of 6, so it looks like a point-to-point sprint, with no circuit involved.

So you've got laps on a closed circuit and a sprint through traffic. Neither clip shows how the race was started, what it pays, or whether it was a mission or something found in free roam.

Challenged mid-drive

Edge's issue 430 cover feature, out on 29 October, gives one answer to how a race can start. In the Rockstar demo Edge watched, a customised 4x4 with purple underglow pulls up alongside Rob Nelson's station wagon and challenges him to a race, with a passenger hanging out on the door frame taunting him. Edge says the race had nothing to do with the crime he was getting away from. That's reported, and it points to street races you can stumble into in free roam.

Edge also reports that every vehicle has a fuel gauge and an engine health readout, and that refuelling is quick. Nobody's said whether a race can end with you running dry or limping home on a damaged engine, but both are now part of driving.

Two lists, read carefully

Rockstar's designers gave Game Informer two separate lists for the issue 382 cover story. The first was activities, and it includes street and off-road racing. The second was features of the map, and that's where the rest of the motorsport sits: ATV trails, mud parks, demolition derbies, mountain biking and motocross.

It's a split that's important to hold on to. An activity is something Rockstar's telling you that you do. A map feature is something it's telling you is there. A demolition derby on the map might be an event you enter, a venue you drive past, or a set piece in one mission. Rockstar hasn't said which, and anyone describing derby races as a playable mode is ahead of the evidence.

PC Games Hardware's summary of the cover story adds that motocross takes place on coastal dunes and the ATV trails run through the northern wilderness. We haven't seen that wording at source, so treat it as reported.

Mud in the interior, street racing in Vice City

Mud parks are the easiest to place. The Thrillbilly Mud Club has been in the marketing since the first trailer and, going by the screenshots, it's exactly that: a pit, trucks buried to the axles and a crowd. It appears to sit in or near Ambrosia.

Our inference is that the derbies, trails and motocross belong to the same interior and to the northern countryside Rockstar also listed, because that's where the real versions are. Florida's county fairs and dirt speedways are where demolition derbies happen, and the off-road parks are inland, well away from the coast.

Street racing is the reverse. It belongs to Vice City, which is where the Extended Look's night race runs, and the launch trailer's lime green supercar in a racing livery, chased through a junction by a police cruiser, fits the same picture. The same trailer has a dirt bike going off a ramp in real time, which some coverage has called the return of stunt jumps. Rockstar hasn't, as we said in our launch trailer breakdown.

Racing in San Andreas and GTA V

San Andreas is the obvious precedent. It had street races, off-road races and stadium events, including a destruction contest in the derby mould and a dirt bike course, and they were a big part of why that map felt busy. Grand Theft Auto V cut that back to street, sea and off-road races and stunt plane time trials scattered across the map. Then Grand Theft Auto Online built years of updates around racing, so Rockstar knows exactly how much players will do it.

The vehicles shown so far fit. The Vapid Dominator buggy at the top of this page is a classic muscle car cut down for mud, and the official set has dirt bikes, lifted trucks and ATV-ready country.

Motocross, in play

The Extended Look also shows a motocross race: a pack of riders on dirt bikes on a dirt course cut into a hillside, with the readout giving lap 1 of 2 and 11th of 12. So motocross isn't only on the list of places anymore. It's been shown being played, at least as a race.

What isn't known

We don't know whether the races shown are free-roam events, missions or both, or whether there are entry fees or prizes. We don't know where the circuit is either, or whether it's a permanent venue or a temporary street course.

It's not clear whether derbies and mud parks are events you can play or only places on the map. Mountain biking might mean bicycles the player can ride, which Grand Theft Auto V had. Edge now lists cycling among the things Jason and Lucia do together, which makes rideable bikes very likely, but nobody's shown a bicycle race. We don't know how often roadside challenges like the one Edge saw turn up, or whether fuel and engine damage matter in a race. Nobody's said whether racing feeds the evidence-based wanted system when police see it, or whether either character can race, or both.

Rockstar has named all of this and shown three races: circuit, street and motocross. Edge has described one more, a street race somebody challenges you to on the road. The rest of the list hasn't been seen in play.