Los Santos, Once More, in Full Resolution

A particular kind of time disappears inside Grand Theft Auto V. You load it with a plan—a mission, a heist, something with a beginning and an end—and two hours later you’re parked on a hillside above the city watching the sun go down over a valley you’ve driven through a hundred times, not doing anything, just sitting there. Los Santos does that. It builds a world that wants to be inhabited rather than merely completed.

Rockstar announced the next-gen versions for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, arriving November 18, 2014, with the PC release following in January 2015. The trailer is striking in the most straightforward way—the draw distances alone make the previous-generation version look like a memory of a game rather than the game itself, and the lighting reworks the color palette from slightly washed-out into something that actually resembles Southern California. Whether it justifies paying for the same game twice is a personal calculation. For anyone who bounced off it the first time, or wants to go back through the story with better hardware under it, the answer is probably yes.

I’ve already sunk more hours into Los Santos than I’m prepared to admit in public. Going back into a familiar world in higher resolution has a specific appeal—like watching a film you love on a much better screen. Same story. Better image. The city deserves the upgrade.