Six wanted stars are back. Grand Theft Auto 6 returns to the series' classic maximum after GTA V capped out at five, and the pursuit system built around them is more layered than anything Rockstar has shipped before.
The key here is understanding that GTA 6 treats the police chase and police knowledge as two completely separate things. Wanted stars measure how hot the pursuit is. Heat indicators measure what officers actually know about you: your face, your outfit, your weapon, and your vehicle. Clearing one does not automatically clear the other.
What the wanted stars actually mean
The star count alone does not tell the full story. The colour and shape of each star describes what is happening in real time during a pursuit.
| Star state | What it signals |
|---|---|
| Solid white | Police have direct line of sight on you |
| Flashing white | Line of sight is broken and the pursuit is cooling |
| Hollow | An alarm has triggered but no suspect description exists |
| Red | You have broken pursuit but remain inside the search zone |
The minimap shows a red search area with a wider, lighter ring around it. Leaving both zones gives you the cleanest escape. At the highest wanted level, police spread the search across the full map rather than containing it to a local radius. One star is designed to be relatively forgiving; six is a large-scale operation.
Crime scenes can also stay active after you leave them. Officers keep searching the reported area while it cools, so walking out of a shop does not immediately remove the search radius around it.
How Heat indicators build a profile on you
This is where GTA 6 separates itself from previous entries. Heat indicators track individual identifying clues: CCTV footage, your outfit, your appearance, the weapon you used, the vehicle you were driving, and whether you were travelling as a couple. Each clue is independent.
Changing your clothes addresses the outfit clue. It does nothing about a recognised vehicle. Swapping your hair addresses the appearance clue without touching what officers know about your outfit. A hat or glasses swap is not a full disguise replacement. You need a complete clothing change to clear the outfit Heat, and you need to ditch the vehicle separately to clear that one.
Masks work best before identification happens. Wearing one during a crime, then removing it during the escape, can prevent a face description from reaching officers even if CCTV captured the incident. That is a fundamentally different situation from trying to change your appearance after police already have a description.
Police can also be alerted by witnesses, robbery alarms, or a stolen car's tracker. A tracker can report a theft even when nobody saw you take the vehicle, which means a clean-looking getaway can still generate Heat.
The Jason and Lucia wrinkle
When a police report identifies a couple, the fact that two people are travelling together becomes its own Heat clue. Jason and Lucia can split up during an escape, with one drawing attention while the other clears the area. A text message confirms when the other character is safe.
If either protagonist gets arrested, the game shows the traditional Busted screen and returns you to the world even if the other character was mid-escape. The full penalty breakdown for an arrest has not been detailed yet.
Locating police without the minimap
Here's the thing: police icons no longer appear on the minimap during a pursuit. Finding officers now requires using the Focus ability, which reveals them through walls. That is a meaningful shift from GTA V, where you could read pursuit patterns directly off the radar. In GTA 6, you have to actively scan your environment rather than watching a 2D overlay.
For a closer look at how all of this connects to longer-term reputation tracking, the GTA 6 Criminal Profile guide covers the four profile states and what triggers each one, including the permanent Shattered state. For everything showing up on your screen during a pursuit, the GTA 6 HUD and UI icons guide breaks down every symbol including the wanted stars and criminal profiling indicators.
GTA 6 launches on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19, 2026. With the release now under six weeks away, expect Rockstar to reveal more specifics around Heat decay timers and the full wanted level escalation before then.
