GTA 5’s free Enhanced PC update spoiled by missing in-game text chat, but it may only be temporary

Grand Theft Auto 5 on PC has been updated with a new Enhanced version, bundling in a range of tune-ups such as ray-traced graphics and support for AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS, new features for GTA Online, and a heaping helping of swankmobiles for your fleet of GTA cars. Existing GTA 5 story mode and GTA Online progress will carry over, and it’s all free to people who own the old version of GTA 5, which is now known as the Legacy version on Steam.

It’s a nice overhaul with a few downsides. One is that the game’s system requirements have also been Enhanced – you’ll need double the RAM and double the graphics card memory, amongst other things. You can still play the Legacy version if you don’t have the specs for the upgrade, but Legacy and Enhanced owners aren’t allowed to play together, which threatens to drive a bit of a wedge through the community.

The Enhanced version also adds “kernel-based anti-cheat protections”, which may not amuse those of you who prefer it when games don’t snoop on every application you have running from the stinking bowels of your computer, or have concerns about the cheater-rumbler software throwing up false positives or exposing your system to ransomware. But the big forum complaint, right now, is that Rockstar appear to have done away with GTA 5’s in-game text chat – possibly because these Enhancements come via the previous “next gen” update for GTA 5 on PS5 and Xbox, which obviously have different kinds of chat functionality.

There are many threads about the absence of text chat on Steam and Reddit. Several people have posted what they claim are screenshots of conversations with Rockstar support. One of these alleged support messages acknowledges that “in-game text chat is not supported in GTA V Enhanced currently”, which suggests it’ll be addressed via patch; in the meantime, it advises people to make use of the game’s SMS features or platform level chat features. I’ve approached Rockstar myself for comment.

It might seem like picking the straws from a bale of spun gold, but in-game text chat is a feature many have come to rely on. Perhaps you have disabilities that make text chat more convenient, or perhaps you’d like to exchange salutations with randos without speaking aloud and potentially revealing your gender.

More frivolously, somebody’s posted a tragic communique about innocently boarding a plane piloted by a brand new player, and realising they couldn’t communicate with each other. Hey, perhaps there’s a Netflix miniseries in this. I’ll send Vin Diesel a request for comment, too.

There are also a host of other complaints related to people struggling to migrate their progress between versions. While irritating, these seem more like the usual launch-day bugs.

Of course, the lion’s share of disgruntled responses to Rockstar’s social media posts about the update are from people pining for the next GTA 6 trailer. The game remains slated for console launch later this year so it’s definitely high time we had a video. Maybe even a GTA 6 PC release date, as a treat.

You can read more about GTA 5 Enhanced and check out the system spec differences here.