GTA 6’s first radio previews point to a soundtrack built around contrast: classic country and metal share the dial with Latin music, contemporary pop and Southern hip-hop. Rockstar has revealed six stations so far, offering a 12-minute glimpse of the music and DJ banter planned for Leonida. That’s enough to sketch the game’s musical range, but not enough to show how its radio will feel over hours of play.
The preview suggests familiar strengths in Rockstar’s music curation, while leaving major questions open. The game is set to launch on November 19, but Rockstar hasn’t said how many stations it will include. GTA 6 will also feature podcasts alongside terrestrial radio, reflecting how players can tune in to more than music. The distinction matters: radio can give a game’s world a recurring soundtrack, while spoken programming can add another kind of texture to time spent driving.
Welcome to Critical Hit, where I (or someone else on the PC Gamer team) celebrate and lament all things videogame music, audio design, and the ways our favourite games make our ears tingle. Radio is part of that sound design, because it can make an ordinary drive feel tied to a particular place and mood. The songs matter, but so does the way they sit beside the game’s other sounds.
Pop and metal set the early tone
Flash FM looks poised to inherit some of the appeal of GTA 5’s Non-Stop Pop. Model Alex Consani joins artist Robyn as a host, and the preview includes MGMT’s “Electric Feel,” Charli xcx’s “Good Ones” and “Midnight Sun (Girls Trip)” by Zara Larsson and PinkPantheress. That mix has enough recognizable pop to make the station an early highlight. It also spans different pop sensibilities, giving the station room to sound broader than a playlist built around one moment or style.
For heavier sounds, The Chamber 106.6 lines up Black Sabbath’s “I,” Pantera’s “I’m Broken” and Slayer’s “Raining Blood.” That’s a compact but pointed selection for the game’s metal station. The clips show little interaction between hosts, though the apparent use of duos across stations could leave room for more conversational bits in the full game. A short preview can establish a station’s musical identity quickly; it can’t tell us whether the presenters will make it feel lived in during repeat listening.
Six stations, six distinct identities
The remaining previews range from country and Latin music to African artists and Southern rap. Bad Bunny appears on Cocoteo FM, while Dirty South Classics reaches back to tracks by David Banner, JT Money and DJ Khaled. The short samples establish each station’s direction without revealing how deep the playlists run. That difference between a clear premise and a sustained listening experience is where the eventual selection will be judged.
Rockstar’s station descriptions and audio previews include these tracks. The selections below are snapshots, not a full account of what each station will play. Even so, they show how varied the initial programming is, and how much the game is asking each station to signal through a small sample.
Back Country Radio
- “The Conversation” — Hank Williams, Jr. & Waylon Jennings
- “Need a Little TIme off for Bad Behaviour” — David Alle Coe
- “Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)” — Loretta Lynn
Cocoteo FM
- “EoO” — Bad Bunny
- “Si Es Trucho Es Trucho (Remix)” — Axel Rulay ft. Farruko & El Alfa
- “Canalla” — Romeo Santos & El Chaval de la Bachata
AfroBANK FM
- “Joha” — Asake
- “Gye Wani” — Pat Thomas ft. Ebo Taylor
- “Shay'sana” — DJ Lag & Robot Boii ft. Kamo Mphela
The Chamber 106.6
- “I” — Black Sabbath
- “I'm Broken” — Pantera
- “Raining Blood” — Slayer
Flash FM
- “Good Ones” — Charli xcx
- “Electric Feel” — MGMT
- “Midnight Sun (Girls Trip)” — Zara Larsson & PinkPantheress
Dirty South Classics
- “Like a Pimp” — David Banner ft. Lil' Flip
- “Who Dat” — JT Money ft. Solé
- “Born N Raised” — DJ Khaled ft Trick Daddy, Rick Ross & Pitbull
What the previews leave unanswered
The previews make the stations feel deliberately distinct, from old-school country to modern pop. That’s a useful first impression, though a handful of tracks can only do so much to establish a station’s character. The next revealing detail will be how Rockstar fills out those identities across full playlists and the radio conversations between songs. A station that sounds convincing in a brief clip still needs variety and pacing to hold up across repeated drives.
This is more significant than it looks: in an open-world game, radio helps make travel feel like part of the setting rather than a pause between missions. A strong mix can also give players a reason to switch stations and discover sounds they wouldn’t have chosen on their own. If you’re working in this space, the useful question isn’t only which artists made the cut; it’s whether the programming gives each station a voice. And this is the part most people overlook: the pauses, host exchanges and transitions can shape that voice as much as the songs.
Rockstar’s sample offers a promising spread, but the numbers here are underwhelming as a measure of depth: six stations and a short preview don’t reveal the scale of the finished radio lineup. That said, the range already gives the game several distinct musical starting points. More detail on the full playlists, podcasts and presenter banter should show whether those identities hold together beyond the first listen. Plenty remains unheard.
