LEONIDA / 05
GTA VI / WANTED LEVELS & HEAT
OUT OF SIGHT.
STILL ON FILE.
A chase asks where you are.
A description asks who you are.
GTA VI’s police reporting puts both in the picture.
Trailer 2 traffic still
Image © Rockstar Games
Breaking contact.
Keeping a trace.
Getting around a corner and getting out of trouble are two different ideas. The latest wanted-system guide gives GTA VI players a reason to think about both.
Iain Wilson’s October 9 GamesRadar+ guide ↗ describes six wanted stars and a Heat display concerned with identifying clues. Crucially, he presents the meanings of four star appearances as his interpretation. That distinction matters: a useful guide is not automatically Rockstar’s definitive rulebook.
Current reporting describes a pursuit system that considers identifying information as well as immediate contact. The exact recognition rules, reset conditions and timings are not established by the sources reviewed here.
Dustin Bailey’s separate GamesRadar+ report ↗ also describes six stars. It relays Rob Nelson’s IGN comments about crimes needing to be reported by a witness or an alarm, and describes a sequence in which changing vehicles removes the car indicator. That is evidence about the reported explanation and the demonstrated situation, not proof that every vehicle swap will always erase a pursuit.
There is a broader design intention, too. Catherine Lewis’s reporting on Nelson’s comments ↗ describes police with a longer memory and escapes that demand more thought than simply avoiding vision cones. Her source is TGG’s developer deep dive. We are attributing those comments through that reporting; we have not independently interviewed Rockstar.
Our reading is that the interesting choice is no longer just which road to take. It is which problem a particular move solves. A turn may change a sightline without changing anything about the vehicle, its occupants or the information already associated with them.
Lose the line.
Keep the question.
Move a car past one building.
Watch what changes.
Then watch what does not.
The map and 3D scene use the same positions. The dashed line checks only one reference point on the car.
The observer has an unobstructed line to our reference point. Moving the car does not change the card. Only the separate checkbox does.
Camera controls
This is our geometric demonstration, not a GTA VI location, pursuit simulator or reconstruction of Rockstar’s detection code. It has no peripheral vision, witnesses, cameras, sound or memory timer. The card is a teaching aid. No values here predict game behaviour.
First, go behind the block.
Choose the middle position. The building interrupts the model’s observation ray. You have changed the car’s visibility from one fixed point. The description card still reads “retained,” because that is a separate piece of information in our example.
Now remove the building. Contact returns immediately. You changed the environment, not the description. This is a small geometric fact made visible—not an estimate of how far a GTA VI officer can see.
Then change the card.
Uncheck “Retain the description card.” The car stays exactly where it was. The second status changes independently. In a real game, some action or rule would have to cause that change; our checkbox deliberately does not invent one.
Use the overhead camera to compare the 3D scene with its minimap. Both describe the same invented block. Camera orbit changes your view of the explanation, never the position of its observer.
Vehicle: CarConcept by Eric Chadwick and Darmstadt Graphics Group GmbH (2024), CC BY 4.0 , via Khronos glTF Sample Assets . Optimized and recoloured for this demonstration. It is not a GTA VI vehicle. Asset credits.
Same stars.
Different reading.
A number can show scale.
An appearance can communicate state.
Keep the two questions separate.
Below are short paraphrases of Wilson’s four readings. He explicitly qualifies them as what he believes the displays mean. The swatches are our design, with a fixed decorative count; they are not captured game UI or an official legend. Read his guide in context ↗.
Investigation; identity unknown.
What is the
search about?
- 01 Camera footage
- 02 Accomplice
- 03 Clothing
- 04 Face
- 05 Weapon
- 06 Vehicle
Labels summarized from GamesRadar+’s October 9 guide ↗. This typographic infographic does not reproduce Rockstar’s icons or specify how each clue is acquired or removed.
Follow the transition.
A single screenshot gives you a state. A sequence can show a change. To assess a claim about what triggers that change, look for the action immediately before it and for anything the edit might have omitted.
Swapping a car, crossing a boundary and leaving view could happen close together. One sequence can suggest an explanation without isolating which event caused the result. That is why a demonstration and a universal rule deserve different wording.
Do not invent the stopwatch.
The sources reviewed here do not establish a universal number of seconds until every pursuit ends. We have therefore given the model no Heat decay meter, escape percentage or countdown dressed as a confirmed mechanic.
Its crossing animation lasts twelve seconds for readability. That duration belongs to this webpage. It tells you nothing about police response time, search duration or the balance of the finished game.
Where you go.
What follows you.
04 / AN INTERACTIVE EVIDENCE MINDMAP
Trace the claim.
Before the chase.
Choose a branch to separate
an observation from a rule.
Our method, not game instructions.
Different kinds of evidence.
How much pressure?
A count and a state answer different questions. When inspecting a sequence, note both the number of marks and how they look. Do not assume a colour change adds or removes a star.
Freedom is partly about consequences.
Our mission-freedom report asks how much room a player has to choose a method. Pursuit is a useful companion question: what makes one method preferable to another? The existence of a route does not tell you its cost.
Our American Dream feature approaches that tension from the people’s side. A desire for an easier life and an action that makes life harder can coexist in a story. That is a thematic reading, not a prediction of a particular mission.
A populated world is not one system.
The people filling a street have different roles in how a world feels and how it behaves. Our pedestrian-dialogue report examines its writing. The amount of dialogue, by itself, does not establish a witness’s perception or reporting behaviour.
For actual place names, use our Vice City and Leonida guide . Do not use this invented block to infer the official map’s scale, street layout or routes between regions.
- 01
Official presentation
Shows selected material from the game.
It does not expose the entire underlying system. - 02
Attributed reporting
Connects observations with developer explanations.
Keep the original speaker and source chain visible. - 03
Our model
Isolates a concept you can manipulate.
It explains a distinction. It does not verify game code.
Watch the display.
Then the cut.
The best next step is
a closer look at the evidence,
with fewer assumptions.
Open Rockstar’s official presentation ↗ · Watch on YouTube ↗
August 27, 2026 · In-game footage captured on PS5. The YouTube video is age-restricted and may require watching directly. No third-party player connects until you load it. Poster © Rockstar Games.
Notes stay in this page’s memory and reset on reload. No account, score or upload.
Use two passes.
Follow the action once: who moves, what vehicle is used, where contact appears to break. Then rewatch the same segment while following the display. Write down the visible sequence before assigning a cause.
A moving camera can hide an observer, and an edit can hide an interval. Treat those gaps as unanswered questions. They are not evidence that an invisible action did—or did not—happen.
Keep the commentary attached.
TGG’s “The Police are Smarter Than Ever” deep dive is the creator video linked by Lewis’s report. It is separate from Rockstar’s official presentation. We cite it for that source connection, not as a video we have independently audited in full for this article.
Our extended-look guide provides broader presentation context. For when and where you can play, use the release-date and platforms guide .
The questions
worth keeping.
Does GTA 6 have six wanted stars?
That is what both GamesRadar+ reports cited above describe. We are reporting their account, rather than claiming a hands-on test of the finished game. Read the wanted-system report ↗.
Will changing a car always clear Heat?
The demonstrated vehicle change described in Bailey’s report is not enough to establish an unconditional rule. What else has been identified, what is visible and what the game requires remain separate questions.
Are the four star colours officially defined here?
No. This page attributes those meanings to Wilson’s guide and preserves his qualification. Our visual swatches help compare his interpretations; they do not turn them into official documentation.
Is this 3D street part of GTA VI?
No. The geometry is original and the licensed concept car is not a GTA VI asset. Its one-ray visibility test and manually controlled card were built only to explain two different kinds of information.
THE DISTINCTION THAT CHANGES THE READING
They cannot see you.
What do they still know?