Wow: GTA 6's first gameplay has redefined what videogames are capable of

You have to feel sorry for anyone else making a videogame right now. The 27 minute long Grand Theft Auto 6 ‘Extended Look’ is now available to watch on YouTube and Rockstar’s website after its Netflix debut and, after 13 years of development and a virtually unlimited budget, frankly, it makes every other videogame ever made look like it was cobbled together with spit and chicken wire.

What's so staggering at first glance is the sheer level of graphical detail. Every environment looks lived in, every interior is authentically cluttered and every character uniquely realistic in a way that is usually reserved for actual evolutionary biology. Vice City, the game’s Miami analogue, is utterly convincing too, whether viewed from the lofty vantage point of a rooftop bar or down at street level.

What the Extended Look really served to do, though, was give us a better sense of the dual playable protagonists Jason and Lucia, and their relationship. This is a proper Bonnie and Clyde love story, so long as you choose to nurture it. The pair’s relationship has to be maintained with small gestures, as small as pressing a button to hold hands, and apparently while it doesn't factor into how effectively you can rob a bank or hold up a gas station, it will shape how the story plays out.

The whole thing appears to be a more grown up and serious take on the fan favourite Grand Theft Auto formula. A bit like Red Dead Redemption 2, characters move with more weight and momentum and there are more ways to interact with the world around you, rather than just sprinting to the next shootout like a man-shaped mobile weapons platform.

Of course it wouldn't be Grand Theft Auto without a bit of auto, and thankfully the cars were well represented. Based on the footage, Lucia appears to be the ‘wheelman’ of the pair and car chases will be as much about hiding in alleyways like Ryan Gosling in Drive, as they are haring through traffic at 100mph.

According to Rockstar, there's a big change to how you go about actually acquiring those cars. While you can always drag someone out of the driver's seat at the traffic lights, different cars will have different security measures if you're trying to steal them from the street. Some can be boosted by smashing a window or using a Slim Jim. Others will require sophisticated key cloning tech that won't unlock until later in the game. Oh and some of the more desirable cars will have trackers that can only be bypassed by driving above a certain speed. With our modest net worth, we have no idea if that's a realistic security measure for multi-million dollar exotic cars, but it certainly sounds like a fun game mechanic.

Naturally in addition to the driving, there's going to be plenty of shooting and, in keeping with the lavish amount of visual detail, the two story missions shown in the extended look feel distinct and are full of unique, cinematic moments.

It's been such a long wait and there's so much weight of expectation when it comes to this game, it would have been easy for the first real look at GTA 6 gameplay to miss the mark and disappoint. Instead, somehow, it has managed to exceed those expectations. We're not typically prone to hyperbole here on TG but this is shaping up to raise the quality bar for videogames up to somewhere around the Andromeda galaxy.

Unbelievably, the wait for 19 November just got a lot, lot harder…