Standard or Ultimate: which GTA 6 edition should you buy?

Buy the Standard Edition at $79.99 unless you already know you want the Ultimate extras. On Xbox the upgrade to Ultimate costs $20, which takes you to $99.99, the Ultimate price to the cent. Waiting costs you nothing there. On PlayStation the upgrade price is not published, so we cannot promise the same.

Pre-orders close at 23:59:59 on November 19. Here is what we verified and what we could not.

The prices

One conflict worth knowing about. Dexerto lists the Standard Edition at $69.99. Both first-party stores we read say $79.99, as does every other outlet. Our read is that $79.99 is correct and Dexerto is the outlier. Check the price in your own store before you pay.

In euros, Rockstar's own store lists the game at €79.99. For pounds we have only a secondary source, GTA Boss, which gives Standard at £69.99 and Ultimate at £89.99. We found no official sterling price, so treat those two figures as unverified.

The upgrade maths

This sum is ours: $79.99 plus $20 is $99.99. On Xbox you pay the same total either way, so there is no penalty for starting with Standard and deciding once you have played. That is the whole argument for waiting.

PlayStation buyers face a real choice. If the upgrade there lands above $20, starting with Standard ends up costing more. We do not know where it will land, and Sony's listing does not say.

What Ultimate adds

The Xbox Store confirms Ultimate bundles the game, the Ultimate Edition Upgrade and the Vintage Vice City Pack. The item-by-item list below comes from outlet reports. No store page we read spells all of it out.

Two gaps. Nobody has established what the Classic Car Collection contains, so we will not give a number. Ultimate also includes a mission involving the PTT Youngin$ compound and an Illegal Goods Store raid, but sources describe it differently and we cannot tell you more than its name.

games.gg alone says the items are "uncovered behind each chapter" and that the five shops are "completely inaccessible in the base edition". No other outlet we checked repeats this.

Our view: the $20 mostly buys cars, clothes and guns. If that list does not excite you today, it will not next week.

The pre-order bonus is the same either way

Outlets report that both editions get this pack, so it should not sway your choice. Physical copies reportedly get it "while stocks last".

GTA Boom says GTA+ then renews automatically at about $7.99 a month. We could not corroborate that figure on an official page, so set a reminder to cancel.

If you want a box on the shelf

The store listing states that the physical Standard Edition contains no disc. You get a download code in a case.

Two further claims each rest on a single outlet. GTA Boss says there is no physical Ultimate Edition, so box buyers redeem the code and then buy the upgrade. GTA Boom says code-in-box buyers are excluded from the free GTA+ month. If either matters to you, buy digital.

Pre-load

PS5 pre-load opened on November 10 at midnight local time. Rockstar's support site puts the download at up to 212GB. We could not confirm that figure directly, so treat it as a planning number and leave yourself a margin. On Xbox, keep automatic updates on so the pre-install can run.

The €399.99 collector's box

It has no bearing on the edition question. You still need to buy the game.

What to do

1. On Xbox, pre-order Standard digitally and upgrade later if the extras tempt you.
2. On PlayStation, pre-order Ultimate only if you already want that list. Otherwise take Standard and accept that the upgrade price is unknown.
3. Pre-order digitally before 23:59:59 on November 19 to get the Vintage Vice City Pack and the GTA+ month.
4. Confirm the price shown in your own store before you check out.

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