Molotov Cocktails

Molotov Cocktails are confirmed to be due in Grand Theft Auto VI, under the Molotov Cocktail weapon class. No trailer timecode, screenshot, named region, promotional scene, purchase point, price, capacity, or GTA VI-specific handling detail is provided. Their confirmed return should therefore not be treated as confirmation that any earlier-game damage values, bottle designs, suppliers, or special interactions will return unchanged.

The weapon is based on a Molotov cocktail: a partly filled glass bottle fitted with a cloth wick. The cloth is soaked by the fuel and then lit. The liquid itself is not described as burning inside the sealed bottle; instead, the combustible vapour is contained until the bottle breaks, releasing it for full ignition. Impact with a hard surface normally provides that breakage.

Earlier GTA games have represented that construction with several visual variants. Grand Theft Auto 2 used a plain bottle with a burning rag. GTA III, Vice City, and Liberty City Stories used a green bottle with a light-coloured label. San Andreas changed this to a brown bottle with a smaller label, while Vice City Stories used a greenish bottle; its in-game rendition was difficult to inspect and appeared blue with a lit rag.

Grand Theft Auto IV gave the bottle a more elaborate appearance, including a Cherenkov Vodka label, and listed it as the player’s only fire-based weapon. Chinatown Wars appears to reuse that general model but with an unprinted label. In its DS, iOS, and Android editions, Huang Lee could refill bottles at marked filling stations and make more through a touch-screen activity involving the fuel nozzle and cloth. The PSP version instead used button inputs for both throwing and the preparation activity.

Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online switched to a brown Logger Beer bottle with a much shorter rag. In those games, fire from a thrown bottle could affect targets within four metres, leave a two-metre burning patch for 20 seconds, and inflict 28 damage each second on ignited targets. Non-player characters were left burning and unable to fight or stand for ten seconds, while player characters burned for 1.83 seconds; about seven bottles were stated to kill a Rank 100 player. LSFD firefighters carrying extinguishers were immune to fire damage.

GTA 2 treated Molotovs more like impact-triggered grenades than fire starters: they did not create fires, could not be cooked before release, and were highly effective against vehicles. In the 3D-era games, they could ignite vehicles and clustered pedestrians. Flames were dangerous to the thrower at close distance, and use could produce up to a three-star wanted level.

San Andreas allowed fire to reach people behind a wall when a bottle struck it, and its flames spread quickly in every direction. This made the weapon useful against opponents using cover and during gang warfare. GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, and Vice City Stories also treated the Molotov and Flamethrower as the two weapons capable of destroying a Rhino. One or two bottles could bring down an airborne non-player helicopter in the 3D-era titles other than GTA III.

Vice City Stories gave the bottle especially strong vehicle effects: one hit within the inner blast area could rapidly destroy a vehicle, and close detonations could kill as many as ten people and trigger chains involving up to seven vehicles. Completing Firefighter missions granted the protagonists fire immunity in Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, and Vice City Stories, reducing the risk of throwing bottles from nearby.

In GTA IV, Underground Gun Shops sold Molotov Cocktails for $500, while Little Jacob, Terry Thorpe, and Armando Torres offered them for $350. Grand Theft Auto Advance priced them at $2,000 through Ammu-Nation. Chinatown Wars allowed production at any filling station. GTA 2 also awarded them through the Crusher for delivering particular vehicles, and hostile Rednecks or Hare Krishna members could use them at specified negative-respect levels.

Against later versions, the GTA IV bottle was described as less powerful than several earlier renditions, though a direct hit could immediately ignite an enemy. A second bottle could kill a burning target, whereas NOOSE and FIB personnel in body armour might withstand three because armour reduced the fire effect. Chinatown Wars leaned more toward attacking people on foot; an unarmoured vehicle could still require several bottles. In GTA IV, a couple of bottles could ignite a car, four would set it ablaze, and six would destroy it or leave it unusable.