GTA 6 will be targeting 30 FPS on consoles, per the crucial intel that Rockstar only released far into the most successful preorder campaign ever. Nintendo, on the other hand, stole everyone’s hearts with Ocarina of Time’s 60 FPS version. Will this impact how we see GTA 6?
A surprise that wasn’t a surprise
Rockstar was already $1 billion deep in preorder gold when it revealed that GTA 6 would run at the same framerate that GTA 5 ran at back in 2012. In truth, that was expected, because if it was going to run at 60 FPS, the studio certainly would’ve mentioned it at some point, but this is the kind of news that will always disappoint people who aren’t constantly looking for GTA updates. How much of a dealbreaker could this be? The answer is complex.
I think a good example is that of Bloodborne, a game that barely keeps 30 FPS for one second, but it’s still one of my favorite games of all time. Why? Because it’s that good, and because it was made under the assumption that the team likely wouldn’t get it to run at 60 frames per second on PS4 hardware.
As for GTA 5, most people would’ve preferred it to run at 60 fps even back then, but fans just knew the game would be pushing the PS3 and Xbox 360’s hardware—yes, GTA 5 originally released on those systems—to the limit, so everyone just felt very glad they were even getting something that looked so amazing. Also, GTA 5 pulled off some nice frame pacing, which means that the game didn’t often dip below the targeted mark, and its stability almost made it feel like it was running at a higher framerate than it actually was.
I think players will end up accepting GTA 6’s framerate, because even though a higher count has become much more common these days, GTA 6 is likely going to achieve a solid 30 FPS, which is very different from “targeting” it.
But there’s a possible obstacle on Rockstar’s path: the recently released Ocarina of Time Remake. It runs at a beautifully nimble 60 FPS and is selling so well that there surely will be a lot of overlap between player bases, and that might very well start the 30 vs 60 debate again.
Who am I kidding? It already has.
Things that really matter
Sure, the games have very different gameplay styles and scope. Still, many gamers need to turn everything into a competition, and Zelda is running on considerably weaker hardware. Nintendo could’ve probably gotten away with Ocarina of Time running at 30 frames per second, because the original ran at under 20. To get Ocarina of Time to run any worse than that, you’ll need the hacked Sega 32X port.
We would always eat up all that sweet Ocarina music regardless of the speed Nintendo played it at, but the company still found us deserving of that extra silky-smooth experience. With all that, those who are all about smooth over cinematic will inevitably question why Rockstar didn’t tone down the graphical fidelity a bit to give us more fluid gameplay for consoles that cost upwards of $800.
And while I can’t tell you exactly why Rockstar made that choice, I remember that running at 60fps was the biggest selling point for GTA 5‘s PC port, so Rockstar might just be going for a tried-and-true sales strategy. Either way, I believe most people will truly enjoy GTA 6 as it comes out, but I’m 100% sure people will only go absolutely nuts for it once it reaches the PC and its sky-high framerate ceilings.
GTA 6 will come out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19, and might release on PC earlier than you expect.
