GTA V is getting a free PC upgrade on March 4 with ray tracing and HSW

Good news for PC players: on February 20, 2025, Rockstar announced that GTA V will get a free upgrade on March 4, bringing everything GTA Online has had exclusively on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S since 2022, plus PC-specific graphics upgrades. On February 27, pre-loading opened on the Rockstar Games Launcher and Steam, along with details on migrating your progress.

What it is and who gets it

• It’s free for everyone who already owns GTA V on PC, showing up in your library as GTAV Enhanced.
• The current version is renamed GTAV Legacy and stays supported, partly for players below the minimum specs and to keep FiveM, the roleplay platform, running while Rockstar works on Enhanced support.
• First-time buyers get both versions.
• Heads-up: Legacy and Enhanced will be separate sessions in GTA Online.

What’s coming over from consoles

• Hao’s Special Works, the LS Car Meet shop with performance upgrades, Premium Test Rides, HSW Races and Time Trials.
• Animals across Southern San Andreas and the daily Wildlife Photography Challenge.
• Career Progress, tracking your journey across every update.
• A new landing page and the Career Builder, with GTA$4,000,000 to start out as an Executive, Gunrunner, Nightclub Owner or Biker.
• The GTA+ membership, for the first time on PC.
• Kernel-level anti-cheat and proactive voice chat moderation.

Hao’s Special Works cars

Five vehicles that were console-only until now are coming to PC:

On top of that, Hao will be able to tune 20 more models, including the Principe Deveste Eight, Överflöd Entity MT, Bravado Banshee and Banshee GTS, Penaud La Coureuse, Benefactor Stirling GT, Bravado Buffalo EVX, Karin Vivanite, Shitzu Hakuchou Drag and Grotti Brioso R/A.

Technical upgrades

Hardware permitting:

• Ray tracing: PC-exclusive ambient occlusion and global illumination, plus the shadows and reflections consoles already had.
• AMD FSR 1 and FSR 3 and NVIDIA DLSS 3.
• Faster loading with SSDs and DirectStorage.
• Better support for high resolutions, wide aspect ratios and high frame rates.
• DualSense adaptive triggers and Dolby Atmos audio.

How to migrate your progress

With the February 27 pre-load, Rockstar detailed the migration:

• Story Mode: you can already upload your save from GTAV Legacy’s pause menu. You can upload several times (each overwrites the last), but it only migrates to Enhanced once, and progress can’t be copied back.
• GTA Online: migration happens from inside Enhanced from March 4. It’s one-time and irreversible, though it doesn’t wipe Legacy, and covers characters, GTA$, stats, vehicles, properties, weapons, clothing and player-made jobs.
• Consoles: PS4 and Xbox One can only move to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S; there’s no transfer between consoles and PC.

GTA+ on PC

Enhanced players will be able to subscribe to GTA+: GTA$500,000 a month, Shark Cards with 15% extra, The Vinewood Club and its 100-car garage with workshop, the club’s in-game phone app, monthly perks and the classic games library.

Our take

This was one of the PC community’s longest-standing requests, and it costs nothing. The only delicate part is migration: since it’s irreversible, do it once you’re sure you’ll play on Enhanced, and coordinate with friends so you’re all on the same version. Rockstar also teased a March GTA Online update starring Oscar Guzman, which was announced on February 28.

What happened next

The upgrade landed on March 4 as planned. We explain how to install it and what changed that day in our article on the GTA V Enhanced launch.