Last week, Rockstar Games revealed the cover for Grand Theft Auto 6, announced when pre-orders would start, and also shared a small bit of new footage of the game’s version of Vice City. That little glimpse of Vice City at night looked incredible. But eagle-eyed fans noticed that a Ferris wheel in the new clip didn’t cast a reflection on the water, and now they’re trying to figure out what’s going on.
On June 18, Rockstar Games updated the official Grand Theft Auto 6 website and added a very fancy-looking video clip that shows a camera fly-through of Vice City at night as you scroll down the page. It looks very, very good, and really shows off just how massive Rockstar’s upcoming open-world game will be. But if you look very closely at the background of the shot, you can spot a Ferris wheel. Look even closer, and you’ll notice that unlike all the other buildings and objects near it, the Ferris wheel isn’t casting a reflection of itself on the water below. Over the last few days, this missing detail has become an oddly popular topic of discussion online.
Some pointed to the missing reflection as a sign that the game wasn’t finished yet. Others were excited that Rockstar was showing us real in-engine footage, warts and all. And still others wondered if Rockstar had touched up the video after capturing it and screwed up something in the process. There have also been jokes about the Ferris wheel’s missing reflection. Is it a vampire Ferris wheel? Will this cause another delay? And how will anyone be able to even play GTA 6, knowing that the Ferris wheel lacks a proper reflection!?
Of course, because it’s GTA 6 we’re talking about, some fans got very serious about the whole situation and created diagrams and models and gifs to demonstrate that, actually, the Ferris wheel lacking a reflection is realistically accurate.
Other users shared photos of the actual Ferris wheel that GTA 6′s is likely inspired by, showing that it doesn’t cast a sharp reflection either. And some fans spotted that in other clips of GTA 6 footage featuring the wheel, it does have a reflection, which seems to indicate this is a tech quirk. There was so much chatter around the mysterious wheel and its lack of reflection that the tech experts at Digital Foundry arrived with their own explanation.
“In short, neither ray tracing or [screen space reflections] are configured to reflect that Ferris wheel,” summed up Digital Foundry. That’s their best guess, and they also suggest the camera’s distance from the wheel to be another factor for its reflection not appearing. So, between the tech limitations, camera distance, and real-world evidence that the actual Ferris wheel this is based on doesn’t have a sharp reflection on the water below, it seems this mystery has been solved.
One fan replied to all of this discourse around the wheel and theories about its lack of reflection with this comment:
“How is the community so centred about this all? I was just enjoying the cover art reveal and the fact that we just got a new point of view on the city; but y’all worrying about a shadow/reflection.”
Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives November 19 on PS5 and Xbox. It can’t come soon enough, as parts of this community are starting to go completely feral.