Game Informer Issue 382 Is Live: GTA 6 Gets Its Biggest Deep Dive Yet

After years of near-total silence from Rockstar Games, the studio is finally starting to talk — and it chose a magazine to do it with. Game Informer's Issue 382 drops today, September 29, 2026, with Grand Theft Auto 6 as its cover story: a 14-page feature built around interviews with Rockstar's lead designers and a dozen never-before-seen screenshots. It is the most detailed official look at the game since the Extended Look footage, and it signals that Rockstar's long, quiet marketing phase is over.

The cover itself is original artwork supplied by Rockstar, showing protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos in a car rigged with guns. Inside, the feature digs into how the studio built Leonida — the game's fictional stand-in for Florida — with three pillars at the center of the coverage: an advanced dynamic weather system, regional wildlife, and the research Rockstar conducted across Miami and Florida to recreate the state. Game Informer describes the result as the studio's most culturally and aesthetically accurate world to date, built around "Florida's less sunny side" — storms, swamps, and suburbs, not just neon-soaked Vice City streets.

The wildlife angle is a particular point of interest for longtime fans. The issue promises animals native and otherwise across land, air, and water, spanning Leonida's swamps, coastlines, and rural stretches. Given how much Rockstar's worlds have relied on ambient life in Red Dead Redemption 2 — where the ecosystem was a selling point in its own right — twelve fresh screenshots of Leonida's fauna and weather could reveal more about the game's simulation depth than any trailer has so far.

That Rockstar agreed to sit for interviews at all is the real story here. The studio almost never talks to the press; it barely posts on social media. Handing a magazine fourteen pages of access, with new screenshots attached, is a deliberate shift in strategy — and it fits the calendar. GTA 6 launches November 19, 2026 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with digital pre-loads opening November 12. We are now in the final stretch, and this is exactly when Rockstar has historically started feeding the press controlled glimpses. For comparison, the studio gave Game Informer an 18-page GTA 5 cover story back in December 2012, less than a year before that game's launch.

There is also a redemption arc for the magazine itself. Game Informer was shut down by GameStop in August 2024 after 368 issues, then revived by Gunzilla Games in March 2025. Landing the biggest cover story in gaming — the most anticipated game of the decade — is the clearest sign yet that the revived outlet intends to reclaim its old role as Rockstar's press partner of choice.

The digital issue is available to subscribers starting today; physical copies will reach subscribers and stores over the coming weeks. For fans, the homework is simple: twelve new screenshots and fourteen pages of designer commentary is the most raw material Rockstar has handed out in years. Whatever the game still hides — and Rockstar always hides something — the Leonida picture just got a lot sharper.

GTA 6 NewsWire is an independent fan news site, not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.