GTA 5 is one of the most popular, and iconic, games of all time, selling over 210 million copies worldwide since it launched in 2013. Despite being over a decade old, millions of players still explore Los Santos each day ahead of the eventual release of GTA 6, which is set to land later this year.
Numerous upgrades have been made over the year to help bridge the gap between the 7th-gen GTA 5 and the 9th-gen GTA 6, including a PS4 and Xbox One port and, more recently, a next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X release. After over 18 months of waiting, PC players now have access to GTA 5 Enhanced Edition, which offers improved graphics, gameplay, and many new GTA Online features.
This new port is now the final and definitive way to play GTA 5 and will help to tide players over the coming months as they prepare to say goodbye to Los Santos for good before starting a new life in Vice City when GTA 6 is released. And many players are doing just that, with the game seeing a sizeable player boost in recent days.
According to Steamdb, before the release of GTA 5 Enhanced Edition, the original Legacy version peaked at 184,739 players, as players hopped into the game ready to transfer their saves and GTA Online progress over to the new version.
With it now being just over a week since the Enhanced Edition dropped, players are still seemingly enjoying the 11-year-old game ahead of the release of GTA 6 later this year. The Enhanced Edition has peaked at 149,779 players over the past 24 hours, while the original still saw an impressive 102,409 players.
In total, GTA 5 has seen a 36% increase in concurrent players. Even during a quieter period of the day, at the time of writing, both versions have a combined concurrent player count of over 187,000, which is still an increase over the pre-Enhanced Edition peak.
Despite being more than a decade old, GTA 5 is still a major hit with players, with millions jumping in every day to either explore the legendary story or hop into the online mode to face other players as they build their criminal empire.
Existing owners of GTA 5 on any PC launcher were given the Enhanced Edition port for free, before the game was delisted from Steam, with the next-gen upgrade replacing it permanently. This is the same version of the game that PS5 and Xbox Series X players were given in 2023.
PC players can now take advantage of many graphical and gameplay enhancements, including;
- Ray tracing features only available on PC such as ambient occlusion and global illumination — plus ray traced shadows and reflections first debuted on consoles
- Support for AMD FSR1 and FSR3, and NVIDIA DLSS 3
- Faster loading times using SSD and DirectStorage on supported devices and configurations
- Enhanced support for higher resolutions, higher aspect ratios, and higher framerates
- DualSense® controller support, with adaptive triggers
- Enhanced audio with support for Dolby Atmos and improved fidelity of speech, cinematics, and music
GTA Online players can also now access plenty of new content previously only available to PS5 and Xbox Series X players, including new vehicles and upgrades at Hao’s Special Works. There are also new Ambient Animal encounters where players can take pictures of them to earn daily rewards as part of the Wildlife Photography Challenge.
For the first time, GTA Online players can purchase the GTA+ Membership, granting players GTA$500,000 each month, as well as a 15% bonus on purchased Shark Cards. There are also many exclusive items to utilize, including a 100-vehicle garage with its own Workshop, and the ability to quickly claim all business earnings, replenish ammo, request vehicles, and more.
When GTA 6 launches later this year, it will only be available on PS5 and Xbox Series X initially. This is in line with what we’ve seen with previous releases from Rockstar Games, with the PC port typically coming approximately 18 months later. Because of this, it will be a while before PC players can land in Vice City, with it not being expected until 2027. There is currently no word on whether the game will see a Switch 2 port, but with GTA 5 never being released on the original Switch, it is unlikely unless the rumors of its performance power are accurate, which is said to be on par with a PS4 Pro.
