Since pre-orders opened on June 25, 2026, tension has been building around GTA 6. The $99.99 Ultimate Edition isn’t content with cosmetic extras: it reserves entire open-world businesses for the premium edition, tuning garages chief among them, plus side missions. That’s a first for Rockstar in a single-player game. Here’s what’s actually locked.
What the $99.99 Edition Keeps for Itself
On its official page, Rockstar describes several Leonida businesses as open only with the Ultimate Edition. Front and center, two customization garages. Rideout Customs, in Vice City, turns stock vehicles into one-off builds, with detailed interiors, custom rims and “donk” styling. One-Eyed Willie’s, in Lake Leonida, specializes in off-road work and offers hand-painted custom finishes. Two shops that, without the Ultimate, will stay shuttered.
Appearance customization is in the same boat. A hair salon, Sara’s Unisex Salon, a clothing store, Stock 305, and a tattoo parlor join the list of exclusive addresses. Several outlets, including VGC, also report two exclusive side missions, including a raid on a gang hideout. All of it adds to the bonuses already announced and detailed in our rundown on pricing and the Ultimate Edition: premium vehicles, engraved weapons and the Paradise Garage in Watson Bay.
To picture the line between the two editions, here are the main locations involved.
| Business | Location | Function | Standard ($79.99) | Ultimate ($99.99) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rideout Customs | Vice City | Car tuning (rims, interiors, donk style) | Locked | Open |
| One-Eyed Willie’s | Lake Leonida | Off-road tuning, custom paint jobs | Locked | Open |
| Sara’s Unisex Salon | Leonida | Hair styling | Locked | Open |
| Stock 305 | Leonida | Clothing store | Locked | Open |
| Tattoo parlor | Leonida | Signature tattoos | Locked | Open |
| Side missions (including a hideout raid) | Leonida | Extra playable content | No | Yes |
Why This Is a Break for Rockstar
Premium editions are nothing new at Rockstar, but their content followed an unspoken rule. The Special Edition of GTA V and the Ultimate Edition of Red Dead Redemption 2 stuck to cosmetics, character bonuses and perks for the online mode. Never had a location in the single-player campaign been tied to a price tier. That’s exactly the point ScreenRant’s coverage of the debate makes: locking open-world businesses changes the nature of the exclusivity.
The context makes the pill harder to swallow. GTA 6 launches as a single-player game, with no online mode at release. And these garages and shops aren’t side menus: in keeping with the RAGE engine and the density inherited from RDR2, they’re physical points of interest, scattered across the map, that the player runs into while exploring. Many see the “GTA Online mindset” here, the one behind Shark Cards and chopped-up content, now creeping into the campaign. Among the players surveyed by NME, the verdict is harsh: some call it a “mini-DLC sold from day one” and argue that “the Ultimate Edition is the real base game.”
Is It Worth the Outrage? What Actually Changes
Before grabbing the pitchforks, two big caveats. First, the main story is complete in both versions: no mission in Jason and Lucia’s arc is behind the paywall. Second, the upgrade to the Ultimate Edition can be bought at any time, including after launch. Nobody is locked for life into a stripped-down version: you “just” have to pay the $20 difference to open these doors.
Then there’s the feeling, and it matters. A player who paid $79.99 will walk around Vice City past storefronts they can’t enter, aware that a paywall separates them from a garage or a tattoo parlor. The grumbling even had a financial echo: according to Yahoo Finance, Take-Two stock dipped roughly 3% after pre-orders opened, a classic “sell-the-news” move where the $79.99 price also disappointed the hungriest analysts. This controversy adds to the one over the disc-free physical box, another flare-up born of the same pre-order weekend.
Ultimately, the issue goes beyond GTA 6. It raises the question of where a deluxe edition ends and a game sold piece by piece begins, at a time when Rockstar is also shaping the future of GTA Online against GTA 6 and pushing its GTA+ subscription. If vehicle customization is your thing, we’ve broken down what we know about GTA 6’s cars and customization. For the rest, keep an eye on our coverage of pre-orders and the GTA 6 release date.
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