GTA V and GTA VI side-by-side footage shows just how wild the upgrade is with the new game

GTA V has been around for so long that it is easy to forget just how impressive the footage looked when it first came out, but it’s (allegedly) not long until GTA VI comes out.

Now, side-by-side footage comparing it with GTA VI is making the 13-year gap between the two games look absolutely enormous

From robbing a store and throwing Molotov cocktails to parachuting, smoking and even stopping to pet a dog, the footage shows familiar GTA moments in both games.

And while the activities haven’t changed all that much, almost everything about how they look has.

GTA V and GTA VI make the same activities look completely different

We got GTA V and GTA VI comparison footage before we got GTA VI, and it runs through a series of details that show how far Rockstar has pushed its gaming technology since GTA V.

Footage from Dan Allen Gaming put the characters of the games through the same kind of chaotic situations players have been getting themselves into for years.

But the biggest difference is in the little things.

Characters in GTA VI look far more detailed, with smoother animations and significantly more realistic-looking faces, hair and clothing.

Movements also appear much more fluid, making the characters feel less like game models moving around a virtual world and more like actual people occupying it.

That becomes particularly funny when the activity itself is something incredibly mundane.

One comparison shows a character smoking, while another has them petting a dog, neither is exactly a groundbreaking piece of gameplay, but seeing those moments one after the other makes the graphical upgrade impossible to ignore.

Even something as simple as a character standing around has noticeably more going on in GTA VI; however, when it comes to the graphics for jumping into the sea, some could argue the water graphics were better in the earlier game.

The upgrade is hiding in the smallest details

GTA V was released in 2013, and it somehow still manages to look pretty good more than a decade later, but put it directly beside GTA VI and the older game’s limitations suddenly become much more obvious.

The lighting is more sophisticated, the environments are packed with detail and characters have much more convincing textures and animations, especially when you look at the two separate nightclub scenes.

That’s why the side-by-side comparison is more effective at generating hype for Rockstar than simply looking at a pretty GTA VI screenshot.

Even GTA V Enhanced running at high-end PC settings can still look surprisingly impressive, but comparisons with GTA VI highlight the newer game’s improvements in lighting, character rendering and environmental detail.

After 13 years, Rockstar isn’t changing what makes GTA fun so much as giving all that familiar drama a makeover.

And judging by these side-by-side clips, the excitement is only building.