all units respond
The Six-Star Wanted Level
What Rockstar has confirmed about GTA 6’s police, and how to shake them
The wanted system at a glance
What Is Confirmed
Everything below comes from An Extended Look, the 26-minute gameplay showcase Rockstar premiered on August 27, 2026, and from Rockstar’s Rob Nelson talking through it with IGN. Nothing here is from a leak.
Six stars, not five
The wanted meter tops out at six stars, one more than GTA V. Stars climb as police respond more aggressively. GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas and GTA IV all had six; GTA V dropped to five. GTA 6 brings the sixth star back for the first time since 2008.
Crimes have to be seen
Police only get involved when someone witnesses the crime or an alarm is tripped. Nelson’s words: the system “requires that someone witness the crime.” An empty back road is a different place from a busy Vice City street.
Four things the police know about you
Four icons next to the stars show what the police have on you: your clothes, your face, your car, and whether you are with a partner. Each one is a lead. Remove the lead and the icon goes away.
Jason and Lucia can split up
When the police know they are chasing a pair, separating lowers their picture of you. Nelson says splitting up reduces what the police can match against, which turns the two-protagonist setup into an escape tool.
Ditch the car they saw
Police track the vehicle they last saw you in. In the showcase, swapping into a car they had not seen cleared the car icon and a patrol unit drove straight past. Getting out of the known vehicle is the fastest way to drop a lead.
White stars, red stars
Break line of sight and the stars change from white to red. The footage shows police still searching while red, but no longer in direct pursuit. Rockstar has not spelled out the exact rule, so treat “red means searching” as the community’s reading of the footage.
How To Shake Each Level
Based on what the showcase demonstrated and what Nelson described. Levels four to six have not been shown in official footage yet.
| Stars | What it looks like | What works |
|---|---|---|
| ★ | A patrol car or two, low urgency. | Easy to lose. Turn a corner, leave the car, keep walking. |
| ★★ | More units, the four icons start filling in. | Change cars, change clothes if you can, split from your partner. |
| ★★★ | Roadblocks and sustained pursuit. | Nelson’s advice: get out of the car and into alleys on foot. Escaping by road only works in something very fast or on a sports bike. |
| ★★★★ to ★★★★★★ | Not shown in official footage. | Unknown. In earlier six-star games this meant helicopters, SWAT, then the military. We will update this page the moment Rockstar shows it. |
Wanted Stars In Every GTA
| Game | Year | Max stars | At the top |
|---|---|---|---|
| GTA III | 2001 | 6 | Army with tanks |
| Vice City | 2002 | 6 | Army with tanks |
| San Andreas | 2004 | 6 | Army with tanks and Hydra jets |
| GTA IV | 2008 | 6 | NOOSE and FIB, no military |
| GTA V | 2013 | 5 | NOOSE, FIB and helicopters |
| GTA VI | 2026 | 6 | Not yet shown |
Red Dead Redemption 2 uses a bounty and lawmen system instead of stars; our RDR2 guide covers it.
How A Chase Plays Out
The same sequence the showcase walked through, written out as it happens from the driver’s seat.
- You commit the crime. Nothing happens yet. In GTA V the stars appeared the instant you did something wrong; in GTA 6 the game first checks whether anyone saw it. Smash a window on an empty road and the meter stays empty.
- Someone sees it, or an alarm goes off. A bystander pulls out a phone, a shop alarm trips, or a patrol car happens to be passing. Now the first star lights up and the police are dispatched with whatever that witness could give them.
- The four icons fill in. As officers get eyes on you, the icons next to the stars light up one by one: the car you are in, the clothes you wear, your face, and whether you have a partner with you. Each lit icon is a lead the police can use to pick you out of a crowd.
- The stars climb. Keep fighting back or keep driving through them and more units respond, more aggressively, and the star count goes up. The showcase showed this up to three stars.
- You break line of sight. Duck into an alley, a garage or a side street with no police in view. The stars turn red: the police are still searching the area, but they are no longer chasing a target they can see.
- You kill the leads. While the stars are red, every lead you remove makes you harder to re-identify. Switch to a car they have not seen and the car icon clears. Split from your partner and the pair icon clears. Change outfit and the clothes icon clears. Leave the search area entirely and the stars fade out.
- Or you get spotted again. A searching unit gets eyes on you, the stars go white, and the chase is back on with every lead that was still lit.
What Each Icon Means And How To Clear It
🚗 Vehicle
Lit when the police have seen the car, bike or boat you are using. This is the lead you will clear most often: in the showcase, jumping into an unseen car was enough for a patrol to drive straight past. Expect it to re-light the moment a unit sees you in the new vehicle.
👕 Clothes
Lit when your outfit has been seen. Clear it by changing clothes, which in practice means reaching a wardrobe, a shop or a stashed change of outfit while the stars are red. Rockstar has not shown a mid-chase change on camera yet, so the exact mechanics are the one open question here.
👤 Face
Lit when an officer has had a good look at you. This is the hardest lead to clear and Rockstar has not said how, if at all, it can be removed in the middle of a chase. Masks are the obvious guess given the heist outfits shown in Trailer 2, but that is our guess, not a confirmed feature.
👥 Partner
Lit when the police know they are looking for two people. Jason and Lucia are the first GTA leads who can be in a chase together, and this icon is the reason to split up: two people walking separately match the description of a pair far less than two people together.
GTA V vs GTA 6: The Wanted System Side By Side
| Feature | GTA V (2013) | GTA VI (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum stars | 5 | 6 |
| How a wanted level starts | Instantly, as soon as the game registers the crime | Only when a witness or an alarm reports it |
| What the police track | Your position; the search cone on the mini-map | Four leads: vehicle, clothes, face, partner |
| Searching state | Grey-flashing stars and search cones once out of sight | Red stars once out of sight; white again when spotted |
| Changing cars | Helps only if it happens out of view | Clears the vehicle lead; a visible switch still counts if no officer sees you do it |
| Changing clothes | No effect on the chase | Clears the clothes lead |
| Second player character | Switching characters mid-chase loses the wanted level outright | Jason and Lucia can split up to shrink the police’s picture of them |
| Top response | NOOSE tactical units, FIB, attack helicopters | Not yet shown |
The short version: GTA V asked whether the police could see you. GTA 6 asks what the police know about you, and lets you take that knowledge away piece by piece.
What Rockstar Has Not Shown Yet
We keep this list so you can tell confirmed fact from fan theory. Each item gets moved up the page the day Rockstar shows it.
Stars four to six
No official footage goes above three stars. Helicopters, tactical teams and whatever sits at the sixth star are unconfirmed.
Military response
The 3D-era games sent the army at six stars; GTA IV and V did not. Whether Leonida has a National Guard response is unknown.
Clearing the face lead
Masks, haircuts, time passing: none has been shown to clear the face icon. Treat anything you read about it as a theory.
Bribes and the law
GTA IV let you pay a bribe; older games had police bribes as pickups. Nothing of the kind has been confirmed for GTA 6.
Wanted levels online
Everything above is single player. How the system works in GTA Online’s next version has not been discussed at all.
Rural vs city policing
The “someone must witness it” rule implies the Leonida backwoods are far quieter than Vice City, but no footage has shown a rural chase.
Wanted System Glossary
- Wanted level
- The number of stars currently lit, one to six. Higher means more, and more aggressive, police.
- Lead
- Our word for one of the four things the police can know about you (vehicle, clothes, face, partner), shown as an icon beside the stars.
- White stars
- Active pursuit. At least one unit has eyes on you right now.
- Red stars
- Search mode. You have broken line of sight; units are combing the area using the leads they still hold.
- Witness
- Any NPC, officer or alarm that reports a crime. No witness, no wanted level.
- Six stars
- The top of the meter and the name of this site. Last seen in GTA IV (2008), back in GTA 6.
- NOOSE
- The series’ tactical police unit (a play on SWAT), the top-level response in GTA IV and V. Not yet confirmed for GTA 6.
- Bounty
- Not a GTA 6 term. It is what Red Dead Redemption 2 uses instead of stars: a dollar amount on your head that lawmen and bounty hunters chase.
Wanted Level FAQ
Does GTA 6 have six wanted stars?
Can I change clothes to lose the police?
What do the red stars mean?
Is there a military response at six stars?
Where does the name SixStarsWanted come from?
Sources: Rockstar Games, An Extended Look (August 27, 2026); GamesRadar+ on the wanted system, quoting Rockstar’s Rob Nelson via IGN. Page published October 11, 2026.