⛈️ Rockstar has provided more details on GTA 6’s clever revamped weather system
😲 A new Game Informer interview reveals everything from dynamic cloudscapes to clever localized and persistent weather with lasting effects
🌈 The game is also set to have everything from rainbows to hefty storms
🤔 We don’t know how this will affect the player just yet, though
Rockstar has lifted the lid on GTA 6’s revamped weather system, which reveals some mighty impressive details.
As per a new interview with Rockstar’s vice president of art for lighting and rendering, Owen Shepherd, in a new interview with Game Informer, the studio has explained that the weather system has been “re-engineered…to make everything much more localized and persistent, and really wanted the world to feel dynamically solid and achieve a sense of scale we haven’t felt before.”
Shepherd went on to note that GTA 6 is set to have “fully dynamic cloudscapes that roll across the map” to give a “broad spectrum of weather from the clear blue skies of a Miami winter to the vertiginous cumulonimbus clouds with sporadic lightning that you see most afternoons in the Floridian summer and autumn”.
As Eurogamer notes, the prospect of “localized and persistent” weather is interesting, as it means rain can be in one part of the map while you’re as dry as bone in another. Likewise, the after-effects of a far-away storm, such as rainbows and wet puddles, will stay long after it has subsided.
Rockstar isn’t telling all, though, about what potential hurricanes and thunderstorms will look exactly, though, but Shepherd did provide some details about the intended effects.
He noted it would bring “Heavy clouds, strong winds, dense atmospherics, and a lot of rain”, to combine so “everything is dripping wet, water is gushing off roof edges and lampposts, thunder rumbles and flashes of lightning light up the clouds dramatically.”
The other thing that Shepherd didn’t explain was how the weather is likely to affect how you move around the world. It may be the case that things are purely cosmetic, or that heavy rainfall could cause your car to aquaplane and for you to lose grip, or that a plane or parachute is much harder to control on a windier day.
The Game Informer piece also revealed that Rockstar has confirmed over 170 animal species for Leonida, including 60 different birds and more than 30 land mammals.
Rockstar has also brought back underwater scuba diving, while GTA 6 is borrowing some things from Red Dead Redemption 2, such as discoverable animals you can study and Legendary animals that the studio hasn’t given any more info on just yet.
Rockstar recently also unveiled a $400 GTA 6 Collector’s Edition with some cool extras, including Oakley sunglasses, figurines and more, but some items we feel like we’ve seen somewhere before.
GTA 6 is out November 19, 2026, for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Up next: GTA 6 Online could arrive next year, says Twitch CEO
Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.