The wanted system and evidence

The wanted display in the Extended Look carries a row of icons rather than a row of stars alone. Reporting on that footage identified them as your face, your clothing, your vehicle, your weapon, your partner and CCTV coverage. Each is a separate piece of evidence, and each can be dealt with separately.

Why this changes the chase

In every previous Grand Theft Auto, escaping meant breaking line of sight and waiting. The stars were a timer with a search cone attached. Under an evidence model, breaking line of sight is only the first thing you do, because the description the police are working from survives it. Losing one piece does not clear the rest.

That turns the back half of a chase into a cleanup job. Change clothes and your description is out of date. Swap or destroy the car and the vehicle they are looking for stops matching. Dump the weapon and it stops matching you to the scene. None of that is hiding, and all of it takes time you may not have.

The knock-on effects

Several other confirmed systems only make sense alongside this one. Masks matter because a face is a tracked item. Witness descriptions matter for the same reason. Weapon condition matters because a distinctive gun is easier to match than a generic one, and because dumping a weapon you have invested in has a cost. Storing larger weapons in the car rather than on your body means the car is carrying evidence for you.

The store robbery system reported alongside it works on the same logic, with masks, witnesses and a getaway plan all feeding the outcome rather than a single alert level.

What is not known

How forgiving any of it is remains unshown. An evidence system can be a light dusting on top of the old star model or it can be the spine of every police encounter in the game, and a trailer cannot tell you which. Rockstar has not published the full icon list either, so treat the six above as what has been read off the footage rather than a confirmed set.

Related: Criminal Profile, weapon condition.