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GTA 6 is rated M, the Heat become Vice City for a night, and The Witcher 3 Remastered beats its Steam record

A Vice City tower block at dusk with the bay and marina beyond, a helicopter passing. Image: Rockstar Games.

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Updated 3 October 2026 · See what changed →

ConfirmedRatings read off the ESRB, PEGI and Rockstar’s GTA VI sitePublished 2 OctUpdated 3 Oct
Why it mattersGTA 6 now carries its age ratings, M from the ESRB and 18 from PEGI, seven weeks before its 19 November launch.

GTA 6 now carries its ESRB rating on Rockstar’s own site: M for Mature, with an In-Game Purchases notice and no Users Interact label. The Miami Heat will play as Vice City on 18 November, the night before launch. Also this week: Take-Two’s legal letter ended an unofficial GTA 5 port for Switch, The Witcher 3 Remastered beat the game’s Steam player record, an analyst found Capcom’s discount did more for Resident Evil 2 than the new film did, and Xbox’s chief executive told The New York Times that Xbox is not for sale.

A Vice City tower block at dusk with the bay and marina beyond, a helicopter passing. Image: Rockstar Games.
A Vice City tower block at dusk, one of the screenshots Rockstar added on 30 September. Image: Rockstar Games.

GTA 6 is rated M by the ESRB and 18 by PEGI, with In-Game Purchases and no Users Interact label

Rockstar’s GTA VI site now shows the ESRB’s Mature rating with seven content descriptors: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, and Use of Drugs and Alcohol. The one interactive element listed is In-Game Purchases. Siliconera reported the rating from the game’s PlayStation Store listing on 1 October. The ESRB’s own database had no GTA VI entry when we searched it on 2 October, so the longer rating summary, which describes specific scenes, is still to come.

The rating does not carry Users Interact, the ESRB element for exposure to unfiltered player communication and shared content. That fits the line Take-Two gave its 17 September shareholder meeting, as reported by TechRadar: “GTA 6 is a single-player title and is due to release this November.” A rating label is not an announcement, and it says nothing about an online mode after launch. Our Rumour Ledger, Ed. 12 tracks what Take-Two has and has not said on that.

PEGI has rated GTA VI 18 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with descriptors for violence, sex, drugs and in-game purchases. Its consumer advice goes further than the ESRB’s short form. It cites decapitation and dismemberment, cocaine the player can carry and use straight from the inventory, nudity and scenes of intercourse, and private dances in nightclubs. It also cites discriminatory language on in-game TV and radio. PEGI says the game can be played without buying in-game items. The 2 October date on the listing is not a new release date: PEGI’s note says the release “remains 19 November 2026”.

An R 18+ entry for GTA VI on Australia’s Classification Board database is also being reported as the game’s rating. The Board files it as a demonstration, dated 27 August 2026, the day Rockstar released An Extended Look, so it is the trailer’s classification, not the game’s. The game’s own Australian rating has not been published.

The Miami Heat play as Vice City on 18 November, the night before launch

The Heat announced “A Night in Vice City” on X on 2 October: “For one night only, the HEAT trade Miami for Vice City. Join us on November 18, when Vice City hosts the Milwaukee Bucks on a never-before-seen court, wearing an all-new uniform.” The game tips off at 7:00 p.m. ET at the Kaseya Center and is on ESPN. The Heat’s event page calls it “a historic partnership” for the eve of GTA VI’s release and says more game-night activities are still to be announced. A Court Culture Vice City apparel line is already on sale at the Heat store, with tops at $45 to $55. Rockstar had not posted about the event on its own X account when we checked on 2 October. In September, local reporting had Rockstar paying Miami-Dade County $975,000 for a sign at the Kaseya Center, a claim our Rumour Ledger carries at Likely.

Take-Two’s cease-and-desist ends Mojso’s unofficial GTA 5 port for Switch

The modder Mojso cancelled an unofficial Nintendo Switch port of GTA 5 days before its planned release, after a cease-and-desist letter from Take-Two, Kotaku reported on 28 September. A week earlier Mojso had answered Rockstar’s updated modding guidelines, which bar porting, with “Try me, Rockstar.” The cancellation post read: “I am thankful for Take Two’s mercy so this is the definitive end.”

Marathon’s game director says extraction stays the main mode as PvE and deathmatch arrive

Bungie’s roadmap for Marathon added a PvE mode and a deathmatch mode for December, and some players read that as a move away from extraction. Game director Del Chafe answered on X on 1 October: “Extraction is still a major part of Marathon, and we’re also going to continue updating it as we look to the future of the game,” as reported by IGN.

The Witcher 3 Remastered peaked at 120,975 Steam players, beating its 2020 record

CD Projekt Red released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered on 29 September on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2, as a free upgrade for existing owners. It reached 120,975 concurrent players on Steam, above the 103,329 the game set in January 2020, according to SteamDB figures reported by GameSpot. Critics scored it 94 on Metacritic, level with the best-reviewed release of 2026, Forbes reported. It is on our release calendar.

Resident Evil 2 nearly doubled on PS5 after the film, but Capcom’s $7.99 discount came first

Capcom cut the Resident Evil 2 remake from $39.99 to $7.99 on 10 September, eight days before Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil film opened on 18 September. Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliott found RE2 nearly doubled on PS5 across that period, against a rise of about 16 percent on Steam. Comparing the discount week with the film week, he put the film’s own effect at a further 50 to 65 percent in PS5 copies for Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4. That is the figure behind the “more than 50 percent” headlines. Alinea’s conclusion was that “the movie’s contribution is small, low-value, and concentrated in games that were already doing catalogue goodness in the bargain bin.” Alinea’s split of Resident Evil Requiem’s players by platform, 8.6 percent on Xbox, is in our 28 September piece.

Xbox chief executive Asha Sharma: “Xbox is not for sale”

After the studio closures and layoffs of the last few weeks, which we covered in last week’s roundup, Asha Sharma told The New York Times: “Xbox is not for sale.” She added: “We’ve got a long way to go with Microsoft. And we’re going to take the long-term view,” GameSpot reported on 30 September.

Two former industry leaders weighed in. Shawn Layden, the former head of PlayStation, told The Expansion Pass that Xbox should either compete with PlayStation as a platform or act as the biggest game publisher in the world: “This is your Dreamcast moment.” Frank O’Connor, Halo’s franchise creative director from 2003 to 2023, wrote on LinkedIn that Activision should “Hire Bungie, Halo Studios and other laid-off folk who are bursting w. talent” for its next big game.

For GTA 6’s Florida landmarks, wildlife and weather, see our Game Informer cover story coverage.

Sources

What changed

Updated 2 October 2026: PEGI rating added. Updated 3 October 2026: note on the Australian classification added.

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