Hawk & Little Morgan revolvers

The Ultimate Edition includes a pair of Hawk & Little Morgan revolvers in what Rockstar calls classic Vice City styling: palm-tree etched grips, engraved detailing and a high-performance scope.

Rockstar says they come from the Vercetti Estate.

Vercetti, in Rockstar's own copy

Tommy Vercetti was the lead in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2002, and the mansion he takes over in that game is one of the most recognisable places the series has ever built.

Rockstar has now put the Vercetti name on a location in modern-day Vice City. It's in official copy, so this isn't an easter egg somebody spotted in a trailer, and it's the most direct link yet between this game and the 1986 one.

We'd be careful about what that does and doesn't mean. A named estate isn't a returning character. Forty years have passed in-universe, the property could carry the name for a dozen reasons, and Rockstar hasn't said anything else about it. But the studio chose to write it down, and it doesn't do that by accident.

Hawk & Little

Hawk & Little is Rockstar's long-running in-universe gun maker, broadly the series' Smith & Wesson. A Morgan revolver with a scope on it is a specific kind of thing, too. It's a hunting or target revolver, and nobody would issue one as a service weapon.

A pistol you aim like a rifle

A scoped revolver's an odd fit for a game that keeps larger weapons in your vehicle and makes your sidearm the thing you carry. It's a pistol by size and a rifle by intent.

There's also a catch under the evidence system. Your weapon's a tracked item the police match against you, and a pair of engraved, palm-tree-etched, scoped revolvers is about as identifiable as a gun can get. So carrying these is a real decision, with a cost attached, and they're more than a flex.

Edge's 29 October cover feature, from a Rockstar demo, puts some detail on that. It reports that the police description of you includes your weapons, and that ditching a weapon takes that detail off the report. Throwing away a pair of engraved Vercetti revolvers costs you a lot more than dropping a stock pistol does.

What isn't known

Rockstar hasn't said whether the Morgan turns up in plain, unengraved form in the base game. It also hasn't said what the Vercetti Estate actually is in Grand Theft Auto 6.