Rockstar finally offering free Grand Theft Auto V PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades

At long last, Rockstar Games will provide free upgrades to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Grand Theft Auto V.

Staring on June 18, those who own the open-world crime game on PS4 and Xbox One can receive their respective current-gen versions at no additional cost. With the upgraded versions, players will benefit from improved technical performance, new features like high-performance vehicles and upgrades and more. Rockstar says it will also be easy to migrate your campaign and GTA Online progress between versions.

This is a pretty notable move from Rockstar because the company has historically not given players many upgrade options. While most games with corresponding PS4 and/or Xbox One versions offered upgrades for free or via small fees, anyone who already owned the last-gen versions of GTA V would have to purchase it all over again on current-gen hardware. It’s not cheap, either, with the PS5 and Series X/S versions costing $59.99 despite the core game being nearly 13 years old.

Frankly, the lack of upgrade options was pretty egregious, but given that GTA V is the third best-selling game of all time and consistently sells well after all this time, it clearly didn’t matter for Rockstar. For that reason, it’s unclear exactly why Rockstar is finally offering these upgrades now, given that the company’s official blog post provides no explanation. Instead, the post just provides some details on GTA Online‘s new The Kortz Center Heist update coming in July.

But presumably, this free upgrade path is being offered now to help lead into the launch of GTA VI, which is set to come to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19, 2026, after multiple delays. Given all of those date changes and the minimal officially released footage, there’s been a lot of skepticism that the game will stick to this latest confirmed release date, but parent company 2K has repeatedly insisted it will.

In any event, the mere threat of coming in near GTA has caused all kinds of chaos in the 2026 release calendar. With this month’s Summer Game Fest, in particular, we saw countless games confirm September launch dates, and sometimes merely a day apart, if not the actual same day. This includes The Blood of Dawnwalker (Sept. 3), Marvel’s Wolverine (Sept. 15), Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (Sept. 17), Control Resonant and Silent Hill Townfall (both Sept. 24) and Onimusha: Way of the Sword (Sept. 25).

Only time will tell whether GTA VI will ultimately release this year (and how many of these games inevitably are delayed or moved up). But hey, at least you can now get free GTA V on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades in the meantime.

Image credit: Rockstar Games

Source: Rockstar Games