Boats, Jet Skis, and Water Gameplay in GTA 6 — What We've Seen

Water in GTA games has always been kind of an afterthought. You drive into it, you swim out of it, occasionally you steal a boat and mess around for ten minutes before going back to land. Vice City in GTA 6 could change that entirely, and the trailer footage — limited as it is — backs that up.

The Jet Ski Moment

Around 1:41 in the first trailer, someone’s ripping across open water on a jet ski. It’s a quick shot, maybe three seconds, but there’s a lot happening in those three seconds.

The water isn’t flat. There are swells — actual ocean waves with varying height and spacing. The jet ski is bouncing over them, catching air on the crests, and the spray pattern changes based on how the vehicle contacts the water surface. Hit a wave straight on and you get a symmetrical splash. Clip the side and the spray goes asymmetrical, heavier on one side.

This is the water physics tech Rockstar showed off in their leaked internal videos a while back. It’s real, and it’s here.

That Yacht, Though

There’s a brief shot — I think it’s in the second trailer — of a large yacht anchored near the coast. People on the deck, sun shining, looks like some kind of party or social scene. The yacht itself is rocking slightly with the water, which might sound like a small detail but it means the ocean simulation is affecting large objects too, not just the player’s vehicle.

Can you board it? Own it? Use it as a mobile base? No idea. But Rockstar put a yacht in their trailer, and GTA Online already had yacht ownership as a feature. Connect the dots.

Airboats and the Everglades

Okay I can’t confirm this one with 100% certainty, but there’s a shot of what looks like swampy water — shallow, murky, surrounded by mangroves — and something moving through it that could be an airboat. The fan-driven flat-bottom boats you see all over the Florida Everglades. If that’s what it is, it means water gameplay isn’t just ocean stuff. There’s inland waterway content too.

Vice City’s geography — based on Miami and southern Florida — is defined by water. The Everglades, the Intracoastal, the ocean, the canals running through the city. A game that ignores all of that would be missing the point of the setting. I don’t think Rockstar’s ignoring it.

Water Rendering Quality

I want to nerd out about the water itself for a second. GTA V’s ocean was impressive for 2013. RDR2’s rivers and lakes were a step up. But what I’m seeing in GTA 6 is something else entirely.

The ocean surface has subsurface scattering — light penetrating below the surface and bouncing back with that turquoise color you see in shallow tropical water. The depth affects the color; shallow areas near the beach are crystal clear while deeper water goes dark blue-green. Foam collects around objects and along wave crests. The sun’s reflection stretches across the surface in a realistic specular pattern that shifts with camera angle.

It’s the best-looking water I’ve ever seen in a game. Not close. Not “pretty good for open-world.” The best. Period.

What This Means for Gameplay

Vice City surrounded by water means water isn’t optional content — it’s everywhere. Every coastal mission, every escape route, every chase has the potential to go aquatic. If the boat handling is good (and the physics suggest Rockstar’s put in the work), water gameplay could be a genuine selling point rather than the forgettable side content it’s always been.

Fishing was in RDR2. Scuba diving was in GTA V. Smuggling by boat seems like an obvious mission type for a game about crime in Florida. And the police chase footage includes water pursuit, which means the wanted system extends to waterways.

I’m not saying water gameplay will be the star of GTA 6. The cars, the gunplay, the story — that’s still the main course. But for the first time in the series, the water stuff looks like it could be genuinely fun rather than something you endure to get to the next land-based mission. And for a game set in Vice City, that’s exactly what it should be.