🔫 FLARE GUN

Overview

The Flare Gun occupies an odd corner of the GTA arsenal: in the real world it is not a weapon at all but a signalling device, a large-bore pistol built to fire a bright pyrotechnic flare into the sky so a stranded boat or downed pilot can be found. The series takes that humble distress tool and turns it into an improvised incendiary — a fire-starter rather than a precision firearm. That real-world basis, and the gun's track record across recent GTA titles, is the dependable part of this page; the GTA 6 specifics are not yet known and are flagged as such below.

Character & Behaviour

Because a flare burns rather than punches through, this is a placement-and-area tool, not a marksman's gun: the value is in the ignition and the spectacle, not in stopping power. In the games it has worked as a one-shot novelty — light a target or the ground on fire, signal a teammate, or simply set off fireworks. Rockstar has published no burn radius, duration, or any other figure for a GTA 6 flare gun, so none is invented here.

What We Know for GTA 6

Nothing specific, honestly. Rockstar has not shown a flare gun in any GTA 6 trailer, screenshot, or official material; its appearance is a reasonable franchise expectation given its recent series history, not a confirmed inclusion. If it does return, it would most naturally sit among the special/throwable-style items rather than the core firearms.

History in the GTA Series

The Flare Gun entered the series as a GTA Online novelty — a signalling-and-incendiary curiosity rather than a mainline combat weapon, useful for marking positions, starting fires, or lighting up the night. It is exactly the kind of off-beat item Rockstar tends to carry forward across titles, which is the basis for expecting (not asserting) it in GTA 6.

Real-World History

The flare gun has a longer and more interesting lineage than most weapons it shares an inventory with. The modern maritime signal flare was patented in 1859 by Martha Coston, who perfected a system of red, white, and green flares that ships could combine into coded night-time messages — a practical long-distance communication tool decades before the radio. The pistol that fires them is named for Edward Wilson Very (1847–1910), an American naval officer who developed and popularised a single-shot, breech-loading "Very pistol" in the late 1870s. By the World Wars the design had standardised around a roughly one-inch (26.5 mm) bore, and flare pistols saw heavy military use for signalling and battlefield illumination — the German Leuchtpistole, the Soviet SPSh, and many others. Modern civilian models, like the polymer Heckler & Koch P2A1, are deliberately moulded in bright orange so they are easy to spot and hard to mistake for a conventional handgun. Crucially, a flare gun is built to signal, not to kill — which is exactly why a game turning it into an incendiary feels like such a knowing bit of improvisation.

How to Obtain

Unconfirmed for GTA 6. No price, vendor, spawn point, or unlock has been announced for this weapon, so this page deliberately lists none rather than guess.

Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated May 29, 2026.