GTA 6 completely “redesigned” Rockstar’s weather systems to “achieve a sense of scale we’ve never felt before”, adding hurricanes, rainbows and heavy rain.

If you thought Red Dead Redemption 2’s high winds and even heavier rain sounded impressive, you might be happy to know that Rockstar Games went back and “redesigned our weather system” for GTA 6. Hurricanes, rainbows, and “dizzying cumulonimbus clouds” are all part of the upcoming open world.

That’s according to the studio’s art vice president for lighting and rendering, Owen Shepherd, who spoke to Game Informer about Grand Theft Auto 6’s supposedly much-improved technology.

“We redesigned our weather system to make everything much more localized and persistent, and we really wanted the world to feel dynamically solid and achieve a sense of scale that we’d never felt before,” Shepherd told the magazine. “The world introduces new, fully dynamic cloudscapes that scroll across the map, these give us a wide spectrum of weather conditions, from the clear blue skies of a Miami winter to the dizzying cumulonimbus clouds with sporadic lightning that you see most afternoons in the summer and fall in Florida.”

“Localized and persistent” weather is particularly interesting. You can apparently take a break from robbing stores and browsing the game’s social media apps to witness a downpour of rain pouring down on an entirely different area – all while being as dry as a crisp autumn leaf. The aftereffects of this distant storm (rainbows, wet sidewalks and puddles) will also linger once it subsides.

All cool details, but I guess we’re all curious about what these hurricanes and thunderstorms actually look like. Rockstar isn’t revealing much yet, although Shepherd has described the intended effect. “Heavy clouds, strong winds, a dense atmosphere and lots of rain combine to make everything drip, water gushing off the edges of roofs and streetlights, rumbling thunder and lightning lighting up the clouds dramatically,” he said.

Rockstar also leaves out how these updated weather systems impact how you move around the world. Are thunderstorms purely cosmetic or will wet roads affect my tires? What happens if I fly a plane into a hurricane or go skydiving during Leonida’s windiest days? I suspect the answer is that I will end up being “wasted” before long. GTA 6 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series

Elsewhere in the Game Informer spotlight, the studio confirmed that there are more than 170 animal species in the world, including 60 different birds and more than 30 land mammals. Scuba diving is also back, so expect to see manatees, jellyfish and whales. GTA 6 also borrows another feature from Red Dead Redemption 2, in the form of discoverable pets that you can study and legendary pets that the studio always keeps in check.