GTA 6 Wanted System and Heat Explained

The wanted level in GTA 6 goes up to six stars, one more than GTA 5. Rockstar showed it in Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look, where a street chase reaches four stars with police cars and a helicopter in pursuit. Under the stars sits something new to the series: a row of red icons that track what the police know about Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos.

Most of what is known comes from that footage and from interviews Rob Nelson, head of development at Rockstar North, gave to IGN and Famitsu. A few details come from content creators who played a preview build at Rockstar North in July, and are marked as such below.

How you get a wanted level

A crime has to be seen or set off an alarm before the police hear about it. Nelson told Famitsu the system works like Red Dead Redemption 2's: "you don't become wanted unless somebody sees you." A passerby who spots you preparing a robbery can call it in, and the police may already be waiting when you arrive.

Alarms do the same job. Kicking in a store's door triggers its alarm, and so does breaking the window of a newer or luxury car. Disabling a store's security system first stops the alarm, and destroying its cameras keeps you off the footage.

How many stars you get depends on what you did and how violently. Nelson told Famitsu that "the stars don't increase easily."

What the heat icons mean

Heat is what the police know about you, and each icon under the stars is one piece of it. The Extended Look shows six. Nelson explained three of them to IGN, and described the rest to Famitsu without naming the icons. Each piece can be removed on its own.

Small changes do not fool them. Nelson told IGN that putting on glasses and a baseball cap leaves the police knowing "what I'm wearing". A new car only helps if the police do not know it already, and getting back into one they have identified puts you at risk of being spotted again.

How the police search for you

Police in GTA 6 search for a description, not your exact position. They look inside a heat area on the map, and Nelson told Famitsu that the heat will not clear while you stay inside it. Get out of the area and the pursuing police drop away.

The YouTuber TGG, who played the July preview, says the area has two zones: an inner one where police work from exact information, and a wider one where the search carries on at a lower level until you lose them. He says that once the chase ends, the remaining heat area follows neighbourhood shapes and can be larger than the search circle was.

Focus, which Nelson compared to Eagle Eye in Red Dead Redemption 2, highlights nearby police, he told IGN.

Losing the police

Nelson told IGN that one star "is not going to be too difficult to get away from," and told Famitsu that escaping from two stars is "entirely possible." He also called the police "pretty formidable" and said their response is severe, so the advice is to finish a job and leave quickly.

Six stars is another matter. According to the Italian YouTuber Mike ShowSha, who played the same preview, Nelson said escaping at six stars is extremely hard and chose not to say what happens there, so players find out for themselves.

You do not have to kill officers to get away. Firing near people makes them take cover, which Nelson told Famitsu is there "to give players an option to avoid killing police officers or civilians while escaping." How you fight back also feeds into your Criminal Profile.

Chases are not scripted. Nelson described to Famitsu a police car flipping during a pursuit in which "none of the pursuing police officers died", and the creators who played the preview say the crashes in the Extended Look happened on their own.

Wasted and Busted

Cash is at risk. Nelson told Famitsu that if the police or civilians take you down, you lose all the cash you are carrying, so it is safer in your bank account. Guns you own are kept: they sit in your personal vehicle's trunk or the Ammu-Nation armory, so even one you drop is not lost for good. An arrest still ends on the Busted screen and a respawn, Nelson told IGN.

According to Mike ShowSha, dying sends you to a hospital and being arrested leaves you outside the jail. Weapons picked up in the world can be confiscated on arrest, while your own weapons stay in your personal vehicle.

What is still unknown

Rockstar has not said what happens at six stars, what each star level takes to reach, or how long heat lasts before it clears. Whether the heat icons work the same way across every part of Leonida is also not known. GTA 6 launches on November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.