GTA 5’s next-gen update finally has a March PC release date a mere 3 years after it prettied-up the console versions

I get the feeling Rockstar just enjoys teasing PC players. GTA 5? A nearly two-year wait between its original 360/PS3 launch and it hitting our desktops. Red Dead Redemption 2? One year. Red Dead 1? 14 years. GTA 6? Unknown. Potentially infinite.

So maybe we should just thank our lucky stars that GTA 5’s sparkly next-gen update, which originally hit consoles all the way back in 2022, finally has a solid PC release date. It comes out on March 4, just under two weeks from now. It’s a free update, and will involve a “one-time Character Migration flow to bring over your Story Mode and Online progress.”

The update contains a big old bevy of additions to GTA Online, which I’ll get into below, but it’s the technical stuff that excites me. Rockstar promises that, even beyond the “ray traced shadows and reflections” the update already brought to the latest generation of consoles, the PC release will add “Ray tracing features only available on PC such as ambient occlusion and global illumination.” The lights are gonna be pretty, folks, even prettier than the lights they’ve got on their PlayStation whatsits and Xbox thingummies, and that’s the truly important thing.

Aside from that, we’ll also get support for tech like AMD’s FSR1 and FSR3, plus DLSS 3, so you’ll be able to generate frames out the wazoo for this game that’s now over a decade old, and we’re also getting “Faster loading times using SSD and DirectStorage on supported devices and configurations.” GTA 5 will finally take full advantage of that NVMe gumstick you’re toting. Rockstar says you can expect better support for higher resolutions, aspect ratios, and framerates, plus support for your fancy DualSense controller adaptive triggers and Dolby Atmos audio.

If you’re a GTAO sicko, there’s a lot of stuff in here just for you. So many, in fact, that I am gonna put them into a more digestible, bullet-pointed format:

• New vehicles—including five previously only on console—and upgrades at a new car shop, Hao’s Special Works, which you can find inside the LS Car Meet.
• Ambient animals, which honestly sounds cool as hell, across southern San Andreas that you can photograph for a challenge. I kinda hope these are in the story mode, too.
• You can now sign up to GTA+ for “special benefits,” if you need another monthly sub in your life.
• The Career Progress feature tracks your burgeoning criminal empire across GTAO’s many updates.
• A refreshed Landing Page that should make penetrating the ever-so-slightly impenetrable world of GTAO a bit easier, also “an improved introductory flow for newer players with a GTA$4,000,000 windfall,” which sounds quite nice.

Plus some other bits and bobs you can read about in the Rockstar Newswire post. I’m excited for this one. I’ve been feeling a stirring in my gut to replay GTA 5’s story for a while now, and I reckon the excuse of diving in to check out these traced rays and loading times might be the thing that finally tips me over the edge. But hey, Rockstar, if we could not wait three years to get GTA 6, I’d really appreciate that.