Digital Foundry says GTA VI at 60 FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X is wishful thinking

GTA VI launches November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and one of the biggest unanswered questions is how well it will actually run. Polish insider Borys Nieśpielak — who previously leaked The Witcher 3's Fool's Theory expansion before its announcement — claims Rockstar is developing two graphics modes, including a 60 FPS performance option. Digital Foundry pushed back hard, and their reasoning is difficult to dismiss.

The hardware problem

Digital Foundry's analysts went through GTA VI trailers and screenshots frame by frame. Their conclusion: 60 FPS on a base PS5 or Xbox Series X is not realistic. The trailers run at 30 FPS and show heavy ray-traced global illumination, per-pixel lighting, and dense crowds of NPCs — all of which are enormous CPU loads. As the team put it, the open world in GTA VI looks "significantly more complex" than games like Dragon's Dogma 2 or Baldur's Gate 3, both of which already struggle in dense urban areas on current hardware. Add high-speed travel by land, sea, and air — each requiring real-time physics calculations — and the numbers don't add up for 60 FPS, per IXBT Games.

Digital Foundry also suggested earlier that some GTA VI screenshots may have been captured on an unreleased next-generation console — which, if true, means the visuals shown publicly may not reflect what base PS5 or Series X owners will actually see.

The leak and what it's worth

Nieśpielak's track record gives his claim weight, but he himself stressed it isn't confirmed. IBTimes UK noted there's a real possibility the 60 FPS mode exists in development but may not be ready for the November 19 launch — meaning it could arrive later as a patch. Adding a thin layer of credibility, MediaMarkt Poland briefly listed two graphics modes — Performance and Quality — in its pre-order description before pulling the listing.

Rockstar has made no official statement on frame rate targets or graphics modes. Until they do, everything here is informed speculation: Digital Foundry's is technically grounded, Nieśpielak's is sourced but unconfirmed.

GTA V eventually hit 60 FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X, which is why expectations are high this time around. But GTA VI is a fundamentally different scale of game, and the 2020 hardware inside those consoles hasn't changed. A 40 FPS mode on PS5 Pro — which supports better upscaling — has been floated as a more realistic middle ground. The November launch will answer the question; Rockstar is unlikely to confirm anything before then.