The upcoming "Premium Edition" re-release of Grand Theft Auto 5 was outed accidentally by an Amazon store listing some time ago and yet still hasn't been officially confirmed by Rockstar Games.
But it seems that some fans have gotten their hands on copies and GAME.co.uk began selling this version of the game already. We now know for certain that the re-release is legit and coming, and also what it includes.
Leading up to this confirmation, there was plenty of speculation surrounding what was initially called the Premium Edition of GTA 5. The game never got any paid DLC, so this couldn't be a version along the lines of "game of the year edition" releases other games get that include said DLC, leaving players guessing what would warrant a new release of the nearly 5-year-old game.
It also couldn't be a remaster — it's far too recent and the Enhanced Edition available on PC and current-gen consoles more than holds up visually.
The Premium Edition could be made with the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, particularly the latter, in mind.
This would mean 4K resolution and 60 FPS on the new consoles, as well as other graphical upgrades. However, that would mark GTA 5 as the first game to get a separate, full-price edition for those enhancements, while all other games out there so far got free patches... including Red Dead Redemption, which was recently made one of the first Backwards Compatible games on Xbox One to get X Enhanced.
Based on the box-shots of the copies that got out into the wild, it turns out that the least exciting theory proved correct — the GTA 5 "Premium Online Edition" is just plain old GTA 5 alongside the Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack, a paid "microtransaction bundle" which unlocks a bunch of items in GTA Online at a cheaper price.
Images of the box art show that this version of the game sports a different cover. As opposed to the typical GTA style montage of stylised art, complete with the obligatory helicopter in the top left corner that the standard version had, the Premium Online Edition features slightly edited key art of protagonists Franklin, Trevor and Michael.
Above them runs a small banner proclaiming that this "Premium Online Edition" includes Grand Theft Auto 5, Grand Theft Auto Online and the Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack. Box shots of both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of this new edition were shared by RockstarINTEL.
One retailer, GAME, has already started selling the Premium Online Edition, the physical version of which is exclusive to that retailer in the UK.
New copies of the Premium Online Edition cost £59.99, while the price of new copies of GTA 5's standard edition has been reduced to £29.99. It is unclear whether GAME broke the street date, put the game up accidentally, or if this version has already been officially released albeit with no fanfare or announcement from Rockstar — this, however, would be strange.
Currently GAME is the only retailer offering GTA 5 Premium Online Edition. This story is still developing.
