December 4, 2023: Following a leak, Rockstar has revealed that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be out in 2025.
GTA 6 may have been a rumor for years, but Rockstar confirmed that the sequel’s ongoing development is real and now we’ve finally got our first look at what’s in store: The debut Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer was supposed to go live on December 5, but thanks to a leak Rockstar dropped it a day early, along with a release target of 2025.
That’s still a long way off, but Rockstar certainly doesn’t have to rush GTA 6, or info about it, just yet. GTA Online is still crushing it a decade after release, raking in half a billion dollars a year. So don’t hold your breath waiting to get a full look at GTA 6, since it doesn’t have to come until Rockstar’s feeling properly ready. Until then, we’ll be here collating any and all info that trickles out the back door, even the wildest moon-based GTA 6 rumors. Here’s everything we know about GTA 6.
When might the GTA 6 release date be?
We don’t have a release date for GTA 6 yet, but now we know that it’s coming sometime in 2025. The big question at this point is platforms: Yes, it will undoubtedly come to PC (see more on that below) but whether our version will launch simultaneously with the console release, or if we’ll have to wait several months (or more) as we have with previous Rockstar games remains to be seen.
What’s in the reveal trailer
The first GTA 6 trailer doesn’t dive deep into details about the game, but it does seem to confirm a lot of what was previously rumored, including a “Bonnie & Clyde-inspired” criminal duo as the lead characters in the game, and a Florida-like setting. Both of those details came to light through earlier leaks.
Other signs of a Florida-inspired setting include an airboat that’s briefly visible in the early stage of the trailer, and those flamingos and night-time shots of the city, both of which look like direct lifts from Miami Vice. (Which I admit makes up pretty much the entirety of my knowledge of Florida.) A less obvious tell is the song in the trailer, Love is a Long Road by Tom Petty—a native of Florida.
Portions of the video also emulate Instagram and TikTok-style social media posts, which could provide some interesting gameplay twists depending on how (or if) the social mechanic is integrated into the game, and of course there’s an abundance of nice cars, scantily-clad women, glitter and grime, and bad behavior throughout. It is definitely a Grand Theft Auto trailer.
GTA 6 setting
What will the GTA 6 setting be?
Everything flows from Rockstar’s choice of city and decade, and we now know that GTA 6 will take place in modern day Vice City.
Rumors from July 2021 already pointed to GTA 6 returning to Vice City. These claims said that GTA 6 will take place in a modern day version of the series analog for Miami. These same predictions also said that GTA 6’s map will evolve or expand over time, possibly through DLC or live game updates. The Miami prediction has been echoed by other sources, as reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier.
There’s also this from the trailer, which is a very big, pointing finger:
Will GTA 6 release on PC?
Will GTA 6 come to PC?
It’s a pretty safe bet. Rockstar’s past with PC versions has been a bit erratic, but the immense popularity of both GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC is a great reason for Rockstar to take the platform seriously.
And it seems like Rockstar feels the same, considering it released the Rockstar Games Launcher on PC in 2019. It’s hard to believe the studio would release its own games launcher if it didn’t plan on hosting its future games there, including GTA 6. That said, we can probably expect a gap between the release of GTA 6 on consoles and PC. It took GTA 5 a year and a half to come to PC, and RDR2’s gap was almost a year as well.
The full announcement for GTA 6 also suggests that the PC version will come later: It says “Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PlayStation 5 computer entertainment systems and Xbox SeriesX-SA games and entertainment systems in 2025,” but makes no mention of a PC release.
GTA 6 Online
Will there be a GTA 6 online?
GTA 5’s online Los Santos has yet to run out of gas. Rockstar is still regularly adding new activities, content, and events to its big multiplayer world. Given that GTA 4, GTA 5, and both Red Dead Redemption games have had online servers, it feels like a must-have for GTA 6.
GTA 6 leaks
What was in the GTA 6 leaks?
The big dump of leaked footage may still be floating around, but unless you’re extremely interested in picking apart debug footage you aren’t missing much. Based on what we’ve seen, yup, this sure is a GTA game in the works. It’s all likely older footage and is absolutely internal development stuff, not some sneaky peak at a final, polished product. That likely just doesn’t exist yet, given how iterative a process game development is.
Here are the few high points that we might be able to expect in the launch version of GTA 6:
- Two playable characters: Referred to as Lucia and Jason, they are likely the “Bonnie & Clyde inspired” crime duo referenced in past rumors.
- Vice City: Part of the footage includes a modern rail car labeled “Vice City Metro,” making the rumors of a return to fictional Florida seem likely too.
- Modern day setting: We’ve spotted at least one pedestrian with a smart phone, which seems to discount smaller rumors about a possible ’80s setting.
No matter how likely they do seem, all the other features we can glean from the footage—Lucia committing a robbery at a waffle joint, dialogue options for playable characters, a character seen moving and crawling while prone, the messaging system called “WhatUp!”—should be taken as subject to change until Rockstar chooses to make its public reveal for GTA 6.
