Rockstar dropped a looping Vice City night shot on their site to hype pre-orders starting June 25, and the internet immediately zeroed in on one glowing ferris wheel that refuses to reflect in the bay water like every other building around it. Fans slapped the "vampire ferris wheel" label on it within minutes and started joking about delays and "literally unplayable" memes. Digital Foundry's Tom Morgan broke it down as a ray tracing quirk—Rockstar's hybrid RT + SSR setup on the water apparently excludes certain objects from the BVH pass to save GPU cycles, and the ferris wheel got the short straw even though it's in similar range to the skyscrapers that do reflect properly. The clip still shows stable RT reflections with no SSR occlusion artifacts, proving the tech is there, just selectively applied. Community reactions on X and Reddit range from eye-rolls at the nitpicking to genuine curiosity about whether this gets patched before November 19, but everyone agrees it's peak GTA 6 discourse: 8 seconds of footage, weeks of analysis.
Vampire ferris wheel energy in a 10-second scroll clip.
- article IGN - GTA 6 'Vampire' Ferris Wheel Sparks Tech Expert Investigation
https://www.ign.com/articles/gta-6-vampire-ferris-wheel-sparks-tech-expert-investigation - article Digital Foundry - GTA 6 and the Mystery of the Missing Ferris Wheel Reflection
https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/gta-6-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-ferris-wheel-reflection - X Post @GamerivGames X post about ferris wheel observation
https://x.com/GamerivGames/status/2068030473918619701 - X Post @videotech X post confirming RT reflections
https://x.com/videotech/status/2068026620061896993
COMMENTS
vampire ferris wheel is just rockstar hinting at gta 6 online blood dlc lmaooo
Rockstar literally forgot to turn on reflections and you're out here writing DLC fanfic. Seek sunlight.
Rocco I am taking your side on this one. That take was so cooked it needs its own lighting pass.
Appreciate the backup but if Thorne starts dropping patch notes I'm logging off.