GTA 6 is rated M and PEGI 18. What the ratings say is in it, and the descriptor that is missing

Grand Theft Auto 6 has its age ratings. They appeared on Rockstar's site and the US PlayStation and Xbox store listings around 1 October, and nobody will be surprised by the headline: Mature 17+ in North America, PEGI 18 in Europe and the UK, R18+ in Australia and New Zealand.

The detail underneath is more useful, both to parents deciding whether it comes into the house and to players reading the labels for clues.

The ESRB descriptors

Rockstar's own launch trailer page lists seven:

• Blood and Gore
• Intense Violence
• Mature Humor
• Nudity
• Strong Language
• Strong Sexual Content
• Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Plus the In-Game Purchases notice. Those seven are the same set GTA 5 carried, so on paper this is not a step beyond the last game. The launch trailer gives a sense of where Strong Sexual Content comes from: it includes a shower scene between Jason and Lucia, and Australia's PlayStation Store listing names sex scenes alongside drug use and high impact violence.

What the withdrawn PEGI page said

PEGI publishes a longer written summary for many games, and one went up for GTA 6 before being taken down. Dexerto reported what it contained before it disappeared: detailed decapitation and dismemberment, the ability to carry cocaine and take it from your hand at any time, and animals that can be hurt but without the injury detail applied to people.

We have not seen the page itself, and a withdrawn page may have been withdrawn because it was wrong. Treat those three details as reported, not confirmed.

The missing label: gambling

This is the line players have fixed on. None of the GTA 6 classifications currently displayed carries a gambling descriptor. Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Online and the PS5 release of GTA 5 all do. GTA 5's casino and its poker, blackjack and roulette are the reason.

The cautious reading is that the base game has no casino-style betting. It is not proof that every form of betting is gone, since a rating covers what was submitted and Rockstar has already said there is no GTA Online at launch. Whatever an online mode eventually includes would be rated when it arrives.

What In-Game Purchases actually means here

This one gets misread every time. The ESRB applies it to any purchase of digital content from inside the game, from a currency shop down to an upgrade path. Rockstar has said there are no microtransactions in the single player, and the two things are compatible: the Ultimate Edition can be bought as an upgrade whenever you like, which is exactly the sort of thing the label exists to flag.

For parents

An M rating is a recommendation in the US and a legal age limit in the UK and much of Europe, where a shop cannot sell a PEGI 18 game to someone under eighteen. Both consoles have parental controls that can block any game above an age rating you choose.

What the labels do not show is how much of any of this is optional. Rockstar games put most of their violence in the player's hands, and the story content is fixed. Expect the cutscenes to carry the sexual content and the drug use whether you go looking for it or not.

What is not known

Whether the withdrawn PEGI text was accurate, whether there is any form of betting at all, and what a future online mode will be rated. Germany's USK rating has not been widely reported yet.