Rockstar has confirmed that Grand Theft Auto V on PC is finally getting updated to the Expanded and Enhanced Edition.
They shared this message at the end of their latest community update, from the start of this month:
“There is much more still to come, including ongoing weekly special events and bonuses, festive celebrations, gifts, surprises, as well as plans to bring the much-requested PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S features of GTA Online to the PC platform in the new year. Please stay tuned to the Rockstar Games Newswire for details.”
Grand Theft Auto V Expanded and Enhanced Edition released originally on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on March 15, 2022. This version came with a lot of enhancements to graphics and performance, as well as gameplay changes.
As you can imagine, the performance changes were a huge source of frustration for PC gamers. In the past two years, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S players could change settings to increase textures, draw distance, HDR, and most especially, raytracing.
Now, if you play the game on PC, you can have it push the game up to 4K 60 FPS. However, you will not actually get good performance under these settings unless you are playing on the most high-end hardware that is available.
Grand Theft Auto V Expanded and Enhanced Edition allowed PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S gamers to set the game to 4K, or 60 FPS. Of course, neither console can actually run the game at both, but these enhancements optimized the older, weaker CPU found in both consoles.
What we’re saying is that the original version of Grand Theft Auto V was heavily reliant on the CPU, and the Expanded and Enhanced Edition was better optimized so that it could be made to run better. This upcoming upgrade is certain to give PC players a better version of the game to play.
Aside from this, there are improvements in load times, and the PC version may get the 3D audio and haptic support that the PlayStation 5 version has. PC gamers will also finally get Hao’s Special Works customs auto shop in their game as well.
We assume when this update arrives next year, it will allow players to keep playing with their characters across different platforms, if it can’t enable cross-save. But the projected release date raises a serious question.
If Grand Theft Auto V Expanded and Enhanced Edition is coming in 2025, is Grand Theft Auto 6 still coming in that year too? We don’t know if Rockstar may have already decided to delay the game beyond Holiday 2025, but it’s worth questioning if Rockstar will keep their release dates far apart from each other.
But we’ll just have to wait and see what Rockstar announces next.