'Grand Theft Auto Online' PS5 Listing Hints At Major Next-Gen Changes

Like it or not, Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online are coming with us into the next generation of consoles. In a move that I genuinely didn't see coming, last month's PlayStation 5 reveal event actually kicked off with the news that Rockstar's mega-popular open-world crime sim would be upgraded and enhanced for PS5 in the second half of 2021.

It's not entirely clear what exactly Rockstar has planned for the port, but it did tease "a range of technical improvements, visual upgrades and performance enhancements to take full advantage of the console's powerful new hardware, making the game more beautiful and more responsive than ever".

We also know that the developer has plans to start selling GTA Online independently of GTA V on next-gen consoles. An odd move, given the online mode has been a free bonus for the last several years.

Clearly whatever Rockstar has planned for the next-gen online experience justifies selling it separately. Sure enough, a recently discovered retail listing for GTA V's PS5 port seems to confirm a few of the aforementioned enhancements we can expect when the game launches.

As spotted by VideoTech on Twitter, GTA V on PlayStation 5 looks like it'll be sold as a full-priced AAA game. Assuming both the single-player and online modes are bundled together with enough enhancements, this would make sense. It's also likely that GTA Online will be sold separately, as planned, at a much lower price.

What's really interesting, however, is that the listing in question seems to confirm that GTA Online will support up to 64 players in a single game on PS5 and Xbox Series X. That's double the number currently available, which would be a substantial leap forward for the online game.

As promising as that might sound, I do want to point out that retail listings should always be taken with a pinch of salt. There's every chance that whoever is responsible for uploading this information has simply done so as a placeholder... meaning that the details specified are based on educated guesswork - not actual information from Rockstar.