You’ve got just over five months until Grand Theft Auto VI launches on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.

Pre-orders are available now, but Rockstar Games has been berated for pricing the game’s ultimate edition at $100. Plenty of cosmetics are awarded to players who purchase this version, but it also locks in-game features, missions and locations behind the paywall.

However, would-be players are circumventing this paywall in various clever ways. One Xbox user even pre-ordered the ultimate edition using only Microsoft and Xbox reward points.

PLAYSTATION PRE-ORDER: Playstation UK | Walmart | Amazon UK | Amazon US

XBOX PRE-ORDER: GAME UK | Loaded | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Walmart

With a bit of elbow grease, you could do this too, or at the very least get a massive discount on your pre-order.

**How To Accrue The Most Xbox Rewards Points Before GTA 6 Launches**

The first thing to note is that if you’ve already pre-ordered the game through the Xbox store, don’t panic.

Xbox only takes payment for pre-orders two weeks before launch so if you can bolster your point balance enough before then, you can cancel it and pre-order again using however much store credit you have at the time.

Down to brass tacks, though. Here’s everything you need to do to maximise your points in time for GTA VI’s launch.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Recommended

A subscription to Xbox Game Pass is essential for accruing the most points, and the tier you select will have an impact, too.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will earn more points than Xbox Game Pass Premium subscribers.

Every Day Is An Xbox Day

First up are the daily tasks. These are stupidly simple, as they’re pretty much all related to playing a game on your console/PC every day or using Xbox applications.

Xbox usually asks for a minimum of 15 minutes of playtime before it’ll award you points, though it doesn’t care which game you play. Separate points are distributed for both console and PC gameplay, so if you have both platforms, you’ll earn double the points here. The maximum you can earn is around 600 per month.

Microsoft Rewards also offers its own daily tasks like Bing searches and quizzes, which offer very few points on their own, but they do add up.

Altogether, you can earn over 6,500 points per month from daily activities alone.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate- Credit: Xbox

Take Full Advantage Of Xbox Weekly Streaks

Weekly activities will net you more points for a little more work. Like the daily challenges above, you’ll net yourself points simply by playing a game on Xbox and/or PC every day of the week.

There’s also a Game Pass equivalent, which requires you to play any Game Pass game once a day. You can maximise this by ensuring you play for at least five days a week for the first four weeks. This will unlock a 4x multiplier that’ll make those weekly sets even more rewarding, especially if you’re subscribed to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Microsoft Rewards has its own set of tasks to complete, usually revolving around unique searches via Bing.

Depending on your Xbox Game Pass subscription and whether you can play on PC as well as Xbox, you can earn well over 3,000 points per month with this method.

A Whole Month Of Xbox

Ironically, the monthly rewards offering requires the most work but yields the least amount of points.

There are two punch cards to complete here. One asks you to play four Xbox Game Pass games every month, whereas the other asks you to play eight.

Like the daily and weekly selection of challenges, you’ll earn more for playing on Xbox consoles, PC and via cloud-streaming.

Altogether, you’ll likely earn another 1,000 points here, give or take.

Putting It All Together

By keeping up to date with daily, weekly and monthly challenges, playing on Xbox and PC, and having a subscription to Xbox Game Pass, you can earn over 10,000 points per month.

Back in the day, you could earn a hell of a lot more, but unfortunately, Xbox wise-up and nerfed its offering.

10,000 points is nothing to scoff at though, and you’ll earn even more points from any purchases you make that month.

GTA 6- Credit: Rockstar Games

For GTA VI’s Ultimate Edition, you’ll need a grand total of 98,000 points for the necessary store credit. You’ve got over five months until the game’s November 19 release date, which is plenty of time to acquire, or get near to, that sum, depending on how many points you already have.

Even if you fall short, you’ll still be getting a massive saving on what’s undoubtedly the biggest game of the decade. You could always downgrade to the standard edition of the game too, if you’re not bothered about the ultimate edition’s contents.

Xbox Series S free console available to grab for December

Xbox Series S free console available to grab for December

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Clair Obscur Director Warns 'Perfect' Games Like GTA 6 And The Elder Scrolls Are 'Boring'

Resident Evil Director's Leon Kennedy Cozy Game Is The Spin-Off We All Need