Combat and gunplay

Style

Cover-based; RDR2 evolved, with Max Payne 3 in itSource confidence: Reported

Carry limit

Two concealed handguns, two visible long gunsSource confidence: Reported

Shoulder swap

Instant, while aimingSource confidence: Reported

Aim assist

Light, not lock-onSource confidence: Reported

Weapon wheel

ReturnsSource confidence: Confirmed

Pick-ups

Weapons can be taken off the floor mid-fightSource confidence: Confirmed

Focus

Slows time, highlights points of interestSource confidence: Reported

First-person mode

Not at launchSource confidence: ReportedBeyond certain weapon sights.

The carry limit is the design

Two concealed handguns and two visible long guns. That is the whole loadout, and it is the decision that everything else in the combat design is arranged around.

Grand Theft Auto has spent its entire life with an inventory that made no physical sense, a character walking into a shop with a rocket launcher folded into their jeans. Capping it at four, split by whether a weapon can be hidden, does two things at once. It makes the choice of what to bring a real one, and it finally gives a reason to holster a gun in public, because a visible long gun is something the world can see and react to.

It also promotes the car boot to a piece of equipment. The trunk works as a mobile weapon inventory, which means the rest of your arsenal is wherever you parked, and Ammu-Nation stocks are retrieved from lockers rather than carried around indefinitely. Where your vehicle is has become a tactical question rather than a convenience.

The crosshair tells you the outcome

Crosshair colour states what the shot will do before you take it. White for a standard shot, yellow to incapacitate, red for lethal. That is what makes non-lethal play legible rather than accidental.

A game that tracks whether you use unnecessary violence has to tell you, in the half-second before you pull the trigger, whether this particular shot counts as unnecessary. Without the colour, restraint would be a matter of luck. With it, choosing not to kill someone is a thing you can actually aim.

Non-lethal is a real option

• Disarm rather than kill.
• Shoot limbs to incapacitate.
• Intimidate without firing.
• Suppression fire, to pin enemies down instead of clearing them.

This connects directly to the Criminal Profile. Unnecessary violence is tracked, and the game gives you the tools to avoid it if you want the profile of a professional.

Suppression fire is the interesting one, because it is the tool that makes a non-lethal firefight winnable rather than merely virtuous. Pinning a room down is a way of ending a fight without clearing it, and it is the difference between a robbery that goes wrong and a robbery that goes wrong and leaves four bodies for the police to build a case out of.

How it feels to shoot

The comparison Rockstar's own people reach for is Red Dead Redemption 2 evolved, with Max Payne 3 in it, meaning weight and deliberateness from the first, and precision and animation quality from the second. It is cover-based, and the aim assist is described as light rather than the soft lock-on GTA V shipped with, which puts more of the outcome in the player's hands.

• An instant shoulder swap while aiming, so a corner covered from the wrong side is no longer a problem.
• Weapons picked up off the floor mid-fight, which matters enormously with a hard carry limit.
• Lucia fights kickboxing and MMA, Jason street-fights. Fixed styles rather than a trainable skill.
• Character switching mid-fight, so one protagonist can drive while the other shoots.
• Over 600,000 animations across the game, against roughly 55,000 in GTA V.

Focus

A Focus ability slows time and highlights points of interest. It is not a full Dead Eye, and the descriptions point at something lighter, closer to a highlight pass than a marked-shot system.

Dead Eye let you paint a sequence of shots and watch them all land, which is a fantasy ability. Focus reads as a perception aid, a moment of slowed time in which you can see what is worth shooting at. Rockstar has not published a cooldown, a meter, or any way of upgrading it.