The Daily Populous Saturday April 11st, 2026 night edition
Authored by respawnindex.com and submitted by Darth_Vaper883

Over the past couple of days a wave of misinformation is making headlines across the internet. It is claimed that one of the former Rockstar devs, David O’ Reilly, said the game won’t look as good as the trailer.

However, that is not true and his statement is being taken out of context, says Reece Reilly who originally interviewed David. To set the record straight, Reece explained that David never said GTA 6 won’t look as good as the trailer.

What David meant is that at the point in time the trailer is getting “madly polished” compared to everything else in the game.

GTA 6 trailers receive intense polishing on specific camera paths and views, while off-camera areas lag at that development stage; not that the final game will look worse.

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There is a bunch of misinformation going around regarding an interview I did with David O’Reilly on GTA 6, so I will nip this in the bud right now! David never said that GTA 6 will look worse than the trailer, he said with the trailer AT THAT POINT in time the trailer is getting madly polished compared to everything else. He is being taken completely out of context! When journalists do stuff like this, it makes it harder for me to do interviews with Rockstar devs, if you are unsure about info, reach out to me and I can clarify to make sure the info is correct. RDR2 ended up looking far better than the trailer and it will be the same with GTA 6 that I can guarantee you 100%

After several outlets picked up the story, especially when this blew up on social media, a clarification was required because David’s comments were being framed as a warning that the game won’t look as good when it comes out later this year.

The full context comes from around the 48-minute mark of the podcast episode, where O’Reilly discusses trailer production in general rather than predicting a visual downgrade.

bjwills7 on April 9th, 2026 at 21:05 UTC »

Honestly who cares? The actual gameplay looking worse than the trailer is true for most games. Obviously in engine footage will have more work put into it than just normal gameplay.

This shouldn't be a surprise for anyone. Also who cares if it looks perfect, with the current price of hardware I'd be happy if most people can just run the game.

BlueMissed on April 9th, 2026 at 20:23 UTC »

*Former Rockstar Dev

HugoCortell on April 9th, 2026 at 19:53 UTC »

Ok, but the game will probably look worse than the trailer. Generally you make those on the best hardware possible, and make sure to get all the best angles and environment to make it look good.