Push Square: Sony adds a GTA 6 start-up screen to PS5 and recolours the PS App as pre-orders open

Sony added a custom GTA 6 start-up animation to PS5 as pre-orders went live, Push Square reported on June 25, 2026. Editor Sammy Barker wrote that Sony often updates its social media for the game it is promoting, but that he had never seen this before. The report did not quote Sony on the change.

According to Push Square, the game's logo appeared in the Welcome Hub widget when the console loaded, with a link to the product page. The PS Store was also taken over by the game, with links to trailers and to the pre-order page. Push Square's examples of the start-up animation came from two users on X, who posted about it on June 24.

The PlayStation App got a makeover too. Push Square said an update on iOS, and in some regions on Android, changed the icon to the game's orange and blue colours, with palm tree silhouettes behind the PlayStation symbol. The app itself, it said, was unchanged once opened. Push Square added that the new colours had not yet reached Sony's other social media accounts.

Push Square tied the changes to a wider marketing push in which Sony had called PS5 the "best place to play" the game. That line came from a PlayStation Blog post on June 24 by Mary Yee, Sony Interactive Entertainment's senior vice president of marketing, which said GTA 6 "will play best on PS5" thanks to a close partnership with Rockstar. Push Square expected the two companies to keep working together through release day.

The report did not say how long the start-up screen or the app icon would stay, and nothing in it mentioned anything similar on Xbox. It is marketing only: none of it changes what the game is or how it plays on either console.