Here’s everything we know about GTA 6’s release so far

It’s been more than a year since Rockstar Games?first unveiled the highly-anticipated trailer for GTA 6, and to date that’s been the only announcement surrounding what’s almost certainly to be the biggest entertainment hit of the decade.

It’s been so long in fact that ravenous fans are convinced it’s going to be pushed back. Slated to launch this autumn, Rockstar Games’ parent company has – for the umpteenth time in recent months – tried to quell speculation.

In the company’s most recent financial earnings report, published on 6 February, Take-Two’s CEO Strauss Zelnick said that this calendar year is shaping up to be one of the company’s “strongest ever”, adding that it plans to launch Grand Theft Auto 6 in the autumn, as well as Borderlands 4.

While Zelnick admitted to IGN that there is always a chance GTA 6 could be delayed, he sounds confident of its autumn 2025 release. “Look, there’s always a risk of slippage, and I think as soon as you say words like ‘absolutely’, you jinx things,” he told the publication after the earnings call. “So we feel really good about it.’

The executive also said he fully expects the game to launch on the Nintendo Switch. For now, we’re still waiting for a second trailer. The first trailer was released more than a year ago, coinciding with Rockstar Games’s 25th anniversary. At the time, it broke several viewership records on YouTube, and ironically now holds the record for the longest wait time between the first and second trailers for a Rockstar game.

骋罢础’蝉 fans have pointed out we may be able to spot some clues about the highly-anticipated GTA 6 through GTA V. It’s been speculated that the recent GTA V PC update may include advanced lighting techniques, like ray tracing, that have been backported from the upcoming release. This means it’s a feature that’ll be prominently featured in the next game but was repurposed and redistributed through Rockstar’s older title.

This can’t be confirmed of course since GTA 6 isn’t out to be compared, but it’d make a lot of sense as we know the game will be superior to its predecessor on a technical level, of course it’ll have better lighting.

So, what do we know about?GTA 6? When could the game be released? And how much could it cost? We’ve got all the details about the upcoming instalment of the franchise.

While a firm release date has not yet been announced, the first-look trailer in December 2023 gave fans a release window – at the end of the 90-second teaser, when the titles flash up on the screen, underneath in bold white letters are the words “Coming 2025”.

Since the launch of the trailer, the 2025 release date has been removed from marketing materials but on 16 May 2024, Take-Two Interactive’s CEO Strauss Zelnick reaffirmed that GTA 6 will be released in 2025, and stated the company is confident of an autumn 2025 release window.

Could there still be delays, though? It’s worth looking at the release schedule for Rockstar’s most recent game,?Red Dead Redemption 2,?for more release date clues. Red Dead Redemption 2’s first teaser trailer was released in October 2016, and the company said the game would be released in the second half of 2017.

It was then pushed back twice,?first to early 2018, before finally being given an official release date of 26 October 2018 – two years after the teaser trailer dropped. If the next Grand Theft Auto game follows the same release strategy and accounts for delays, the latest we could see the game launch is in 2026.

In March 2024, rumours began to swirl about a delay to the GTA 6 release date. A report published by Kotaku revealed insiders at Rockstar believed the game would be pushed back to late 2025 or even early 2026.

In February 2024, Rockstar mandated that its workers return to the office five days a week. Kotaku says that while security and quality were reportedly the main reasons, the publication was told by its sources that development on GTA 6?had started “falling behind,” with its sources stating the leadership at Rockstar was nervous about the game missing its 2025 window.

Kotaku?added: “While early 2025 was at one point possible, it’s no longer the target for?Grand Theft Auto VI’s launch”. That became apparent when Strauss revealed in May last year that the new target for GTA 6 is autumn 2025.

In December 2024, Zelnick stoked anticipation further when Mather asked him to sum up GTA 6 in a few words. He replied: “I think it’ll be extraordinary and worth waiting for,” later adding, “I think it’ll be breathtaking”.

In its most recent earnings call, Take-Two, the publisher of GTA 6, confirmed that it was on track for a 2025 release date. But only time will tell.

Right now, we’re keeping our eyes peeled for a second trailer, which may give away a few more details about the game’s storyline, along with an anticipated release date. Here’s hoping.

In September 2022, a hacker leaked?90 videos and screenshots of?GTA 6. The footage and screenshots were described as early development, but it all but confirmed the game would be taking place in Vice City. This was then officially confirmed in the first-look trailer.

Vice City is heavily based on the coastal city of Miami. In the trailer, we see news packages and road signs featuring location names, suggesting the Vice City map is going to be significantly bigger than the original 2002 game. Reddit users have already been?mocking up maps of Vice City, based on the leak.

The trailer gives us confirmation Leonida is the state that Vice City is based in, with one social media post stating: “Only in Leonida is a crotch grab an apology for bad driving.” Other road signs read VCI Airport, Catalan Boulevard, Kelly County, Vice Beaches and Port VC/Keys.

Like?GTA V,?the latest title will feature more than one protagonist. A 2022 leak introduced us to?GTA 6’s new protagonists, with much of the footage showing a Latin American woman called Lucia and an unnamed man, reportedly called Jason.

The latest game?is?rumoured to be based on the real-life criminals?Bonnie and Clyde, according to someone familiar with the game’s development. We got a better look at Lucia in the first-look trailer. In the opening shot, she’s seen wearing a prison uniform talking to, we assume, a parole officer.

New York actor Gregory Connors is reported to be playing Jason in?GTA 6. Though the casting hasn’t been officially confirmed, Connors listed a ‘lead’ role in a 2025 Rockstar game in a recent CV update. The speculation follows days after Troy Baker, the renowned videogame voice actor best known for his lead roles in?The Last of Us?and?Uncharted, confirmed he wasn’t playing any of the main protagonists in?GTA 6.

GTA V?was the first in the series to introduce three playable protagonists – Michael, Trevor and Franklin – and the upcoming game is expected to follow a similar pattern, with players able to swap between characters in between missions.

It’s not often you see discourse online about the price of a game years before its release, but with leakers and insiders suggesting the game has a budget of $1bn to $2bn, fans are speculating the game could be more expensive as a result. The leading rumour suggests the game will cost $150 (?120).

We think this is highly unlikely, however. Most AAA games start from about ?69.99, with deluxe editions costing up to ?100. We wouldn’t expect this to change, even if the budget was in the $1bn ballpark.

According to Rockstar Games, GTA 6? will definitely run on the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, but what about the Nintendo Switch 2 and 4K and 60fps?

Nintendo fans will be pleased to hear Zelnick’s latest comments. After Take-Two’s latest earnings call, Zelnick was asked about support for the Nintendo Switch 2. “There was a time when Nintendo platforms are really geared at younger audiences and that was reflected in our release schedule. And now today with Switch and potentially with Switch 2, the Switch device can support any audience,” Eurogamer reported he said. “As you may have noted, Civilization 7 is now on Switch. So while we have nothing specific to report, we actually would fully expect to support Switch [2].”

As for 4K and 60fps on the PS5 Pro? Right now, the experts aren’t convinced. In September 2024, IGN?asked Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry if the PS5 Pro could run GTA 6 at 60fps, the answer was a resounding no.

“狈辞. Grand Theft Auto games have always run complex simulations that push the CPU hard, which is why every GTA game has initially launched on their target platforms at 30fps (or lower). The PS5 Pro uses the same CPU as the PS5 and it would be extremely challenging to hit 60fps if the base PS5 version is targeting 30fps,” Leadbetter explained.

What about the Xbox One and PS4? Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X will be five years old by the time?GTA 6?is released, so, it’s not a certainty that the older consoles will be supported. Rockstar hasn’t confirmed whether the game will be available on the PC, and has not outlined whether it will support cross-platform play either.

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While there are currently no deals on the standalone PS5 Slim console, if you buy the console from Very, the retailer will throw in a copy of the PS5 version of?GTA 5 for just ?10, saving you ?10.

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