Will GTA 6 launch on the inevitable Nintendo Switch 2? According to tech experts, it seems unlikely.
When Rockstar unleashed the record-breaking GTA 6 trailer it confirmed a 2025 launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S only, leaving PC gamers out in the cold. But what about a potential release on the Switch 2, which is reportedly set for launch in 2024?
Don’t hold your breath, the pros at Digital Foundry said in a recent video. While Nintendo has yet to announce the specs of the Switch 2, “we’ve got a pretty good idea”, Digital Foundry boss Richard Leadbetter begins. “This is going to be very very tricky to pull off.”
Leadbetter points to Rockstar’s spotty record on Switch, saying the company has been selective about the games it has ported to the console. 2010’s Red Dead Redemption released on Switch 13 years after launch, for example. L.A. Noire hit Switch in 2017, six years after it first came out.
“I’d love to say it would happen. I don’t think it will, realistically,” he continued. “It’s a mobile chipset. We’ve seen a lot of amazing things on the Switch 1. Switch 2 is going to be a lot better, a proper generational leap, and forward-looking in many ways. But the stuff they seem to be rolling out for GTA 6 is possibly beyond that.”
Digital Foundry’s Oliver Mackenzie then chimes in with his own thoughts. He points out that one of the chief issues with getting GTA 6 running on Switch 2 is that the game’s lighting model may not have a good non-ray tracing fallback. “The Switch 2 is not going to be powerful enough to run all that ray tracing,” Mackenzie said. “I just cannot see it.”
GTA 6 is also expected to put extreme pressure on CPUs with its huge open-world and complex systems. The GTA 6 trailer showed off highly detailed locations packed with unique NPCs, and Mackenzie visibly winces at the thought of what players might do in Rockstar’s virtual playground. “The level of simulation is quite something else,” he said. “I don’t think the Switch 2 is going to be capable of that.”
Perhaps GTA 6 skipping Switch 2 wouldn’t come as a huge surprise. As Mackenzie notes, Rockstar has so far resisted the temptation to launch the decade-old GTA 5 on the Switch 1, despite the gargantuan amount of cash it’s leaving on the table, so why would it launch GTA 6 on the Switch 2? “If they didn’t ship GTA 5 on Switch 1, why GTA 6 on Switch 2, which is a device that’s going to struggle I think a lot more relative to its capabilities there,” he said.
“It seems a step beyond,” Leadbetter concludes, “and out of character with what we know about Rockstar’s M.O.”
Nintendo is reportedly set to release its next-generation console during the second half of 2024, with development kits already with partner studios.
The console can reportedly be used in portable mode, like the Nintendo Switch, and has an LCD screen as opposed to an OLED screen in order to keep costs down. It also reportedly comes with a cartridge slot for physical games.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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