GTA 6 asset possibly used in GTA Online's Cayo Perico update as per a report

According to a popular Grand Theft Auto data miner, Rockstar may have used a GTA 6 asset in The Cayo Perico Heist DLC for GTA Online. Many fans have come up with the theory that The Cayo Perico Heist DLC might have originally been part of Grand Theft Auto 6 but was repurposed into Grand Theft Auto Online, the multiplayer counterpart to GTA 5.

Now, this popular speculation seems like it might have some weight, as there seems to be evidence suggesting that Rockstar used a GTA 6 asset in their popular multiplayer game.

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Rockstar may have used GTA 6 assets in GTA Online's Cayo Perico DLC

Popular GTA data miner Lucas7yoshi claims to have found GTA 6 assets in the Cayo Perico Heist DLC for GTA Online. Specifically, it's a crane prop whose textures seem out of place. The data miner explained that these textures are named for PBR, which stands for Physically Based Rendering. This is a more advanced technology for rendering that is used in Red Dead Redemption 2 but not GTA 5.

Lucas7yoshi believes that this same tech has also been used in GTA 6. What this means, according to them, is that this particular GTA 6 asset was directly ported from Grand Theft Auto 6, or created by an artist who worked on the upcoming game. They added screenshots of the file, including an explanation which reads:

Both are used for the same purpose which is as SpecularSamplers. Basically, the shinyness of them. Normally, they are black and white (seen on the right) but the sub_crane textures use Red, Green, and Blue, which has no real purpose in GTA 5's graphics. Also, the texture resolution is rather high for GTA 5 (1024x1024 textures are typically rare)."

Some interesting details to notice here are that the crane prop uses RGB textures as opposed to the black and white found in other GTA 5 assets. They're also of a much higher resolution than that of Grand Theft Auto 5. Lucas7yoshi also added that the "x" at the end of the file name is a possible hint to Rockstar San Diego, one of the studios under Rockstar Games.

As explained in the above comment, Rockstar San Diego leads the development of RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine) and usually deals with more technical props. At the end of the day, it can't be proved if Rockstar did use a GTA 6 asset in Grand Theft Auto Online, but there's always a possibility.

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