Release window, trailer, gameplay, more

It’s been ten long years since the release of the last Grand Theft Auto game, and all gamers are hungry for more carnage. GTA 5 was released in 2013 and has been one of the most popular games ever since, continuing well into 2023. Even though, in the meantime, Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption 2 – an instant classic if you’ve ever seen one – the next GTA is what everyone has been waiting for.

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait any longer – well, at least for the official reveal. Rockstar finally dropped the first official trailer, revealing the location, release window and some gameplay details of the upcoming title. There are also some more rumors about the Xbox and PlayStation availability, as well as the game potentially coming to PC later on. Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming new installment of the Grand Theft Auto series.

Rockstar Games

GTA 6: Announcement and release date

• GTA 6 first announced: February 2022
• GTA 6 teaser released: 5 December 2023
• GTA 6 confirmed release window: 2025

GTA 6 still doesn’t have a fixed release date – that’s worth saying up front. Fortunately, now that the first trailer has dropped, we at least have a rough idea of the release windows – but Rockstar wasn’t even kind enough to give us a bit more precise information, such as a quarter in which the upcoming game will be released. The only thing we know is the year of the planned release of GTA VI – it’s 2025.

But let us sum up what we know so far about the upcoming release window. So, we got the first teaser trailer for the new GTA on 5 December 2023. Interestingly, the trailer was released a day earlier than Rockstar had planned – all due to the fact that the video was leaked before. The company then decided to simply reveal it later not to lose steam due to the unofficial version being already available.

This was big news, and the first substantial thing we’ve really heard since February 2022, when Rockstar finally broke cover to announce that it was indeed working on GTA 6, and that while it didnt’ have anything to share at that point, more news would come in due course.

It’s great to know what we all suspected, then – there will be a sixth GTA game, and it’s already in full development. Unfortunately, Rockstar has evidently slowed down its development, and even though we’ve already seen the first trailer, we’re still two years away from the release. On the other hand, this might be good news – lately many high-profile games have been released in an unfinished state, so if Rockstar needs this time to make sure the game is fully ready for release, it’s better to patiently wait and get the whole, non-buggy experience at launch.

In early July 2022, another Rockstar community update mentioned that the developer is aware of “the need to exceed players’ expectations and for this next entry to be the best it can possibly be”, so we’re interested to see just how ambitious the game is.

GTA 6: Trailers

• GTA 6 first trailer released: 6 December 2023

The first GTA 6 trailer was supposed to release on 6 December 2023, but was finally unveiled a day before that, due to the leaked version releasing on the internet. Rockstar pulled the trigger and decided to minimize its losses by showing the official trailer a bit earlier.

Rockstar/ Pocket-lint

The trailer itself is 91 seconds long, showcasing glimpses into what we might expect from the upcoming game. Here are some of the most important details that the trailer revealed:

• The game will once again have multiple protagonists – it seems like there will be two. We expect the two characters from the trailer to play these roles – a yet-unnamed man and a woman named Lucia.
• The setting of GTA 6 will, once again, be a fictionalized version of Miami and the surroundings. We will come back to Vice City, but the game will include many more surrounding areas as well.
• It seems like social media will be an important part of the game – the trailer shows social media feeds and various viral trends, leading us to believe that they should be a big part of the story or mechanics of GTA VI.
• GTA 6 will once again go for a brutal commentary on American culture. Twerking, Karens, street racing – that’s just a small part of what the game will attempt to satirize.
• The game will take you to various environments. We’ve seen marshes, deserts and lively cities, making it a great showcase of Rockstar’s mastery of creating memorable surroundings.

Related

The GTA 6 trailer is here: Female lead and 2025 release teased in first look

Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming in 2025. While Rockstar hasn’t revealed an exact date, it has teased a release with a first look in an official trailer.

GTA 6: Leaks and rumors

In September 2022, we got one of the biggest gaming leaks of recent memory when a user uploaded heaps of footage of a clearly in-development Grand Theft Auto 6 to GTAForums, which has since scrubbed the posts.

After a short while, Rockstar confirmed the leak was genuine, while its publisher Take-Two began issuing copyright strikes to remove the content from the web. The hacker in question, who was trying to sell further information to the highest bidder, is now reportedly being investigated by the FBI.

The leak showcased early gameplay footage that confirmed various details already rumored, including at least one protagonist being a woman, and had plenty of quite granular dialogue in it.

The whole story has finally met its end – and it is quite interesting. It appears that the hacker managed to get a hold of Rockstar’s secret info while staying in a hotel under police protection, using just a Smart TV stick and hotel Wi-Fi, which is quite a feat. He was now sentenced to life in a secure hospital, according to BBC News.

GTA 6: Supported platforms

• PlayStation 5 computer
• Xbox Series X|S games

Probably the other key detail contained in that first big leak around GTA 6 concerned the platforms it’s likely to release on. Obviously, GTA 5 came out toward the tail end of a console generation, releasing on the PS3 and Xbox 360, then being re-released with better performance and graphics on the next set of consoles.

It seems that this pattern won’t be repeated with GTA 6, though. In a press release from GTA’s publisher, Take-Two Interactive, the company says:

Rockstar Games®, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), is proud to announce that Grand Theft Auto VI is coming to PlayStation® 5 computer entertainment systems and Xbox Series X|S games and entertainment systems in 2025.

This is big news, but hardly surprising – at least concerning the previous generation of consoles. The current-gen Xbox and PS5 are already a few years old, so expecting GTA 6 to be backwards-compatible is asking for a bit much, especially considering that Rockstar is going for great graphics and an expansive world of its newest title.

What’s more surprising is the lack of a PC version in this announcement. Well, it might not be surprising for Rockstar games’ enthusiasts, as it’s usual practice for the developer to create a PC version later on, but in general, it’s quite a strange thing to do in the gaming industry. Either way, we’re expecting a PC version to come at a later date – for GTA V it took Rockstar 2 years to make it, and Red Dead Redemption 2 only needed a year.

GTA 6

GTA 6: Gameplay

In essence, the gameplay of GTA 6 can be described as everything you know from the GTA series, but more and better. We’re expecting the core mechanics – driving, shooting, the star-based wanted system or the weapon wheel, and the whole gameplay structure – to remain essentially the same, as that’s what you’d be expecting from the game series at this point. However, Rockstar is reportedly preparing some additions to the formula that will keep it fresh.

GTA VI stealth mechanics

Rockstar

The first thing that is supposedly coming is stealth mechanics. You’ll be able to go prone and even crawl around, so heists will not only involve going in buns blazing – you’d probably be able to pull off some sneaky operations, reminiscent of the Ocean’s Eleven movies. There are also rumors of the ability to carry bodies around, so we’re expecting some kind of alarm system as well.

However, there are also rumors of a much bigger impact that your characters could have on their neighborhood in GTA 6. There is talk about the possibility of essentially gentrifying your surroundings, making it look much better and higher class, and replacing the old neighbors in the process. We’ll see how that plays out, but having a huge impact on the whole surroundings would for sure make for an immersive experience.

GTA VI settings and map

Rockstar Games

For months (or even years now) there have been rumors about the upcoming GTA’s setting, but the new trailer finally confirmed these speculations – after almost 40 in-game years, we’re coming back to Vice City.

Last time Vice-City was featured in a GTA game (the aptly named GTA Vice City), it was 1986. Now, the setting appears to be a modern-day Vice City – but not only that. The map of GTA 6 will supposedly be the biggest one created by Rockstar, spanning more territory than GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 combined. That means not only a lot of easter eggs and fun locations to discover, but also much more surroundings than just Vice City to explore.

GTA 6 will offer much more varied locations and surroundings than the Vice-City based predecessor, with not only a lively downtown, but also various flavors of a fictional Florida – marshes, deserts and suburbs, making for an extremely varied experience. This will surely be a great change of pace when in game, going from the bustling city center to a desolate, muddy neighborhood full of mud-loving gangsters.

GTA VI story

Take Two Interactive

The main story of each GTA game so far has involved criminality, as a rule, but the exact flavor is always up for change. A crucial bit of information when it comes to GTA 6’s narrative is that Rockstar’s co-founder, Dan Houser, left the studio in March 2020.

That means that one of the studio’s key tastemakers and writers has departed, someone who, together with his brother Sam, has shaped the franchise’s tone from the very beginning.

Now, on the one hand, given the likely timing of the game, there’s a good chance that Dan Houser was able to have solid input and impact on the script and story before his departure. On the other, if he was on his way out it’s very possible that he wasn’t nearly so involved. That means we could be in for a change of voice for GTA 6, something that was indicated by reports that the story was rebooted after Houser left, which surfaced in November 2021.

Exactly how that would manifest is hard to guess at, but it’s an interesting development for Rockstar, that’s for sure. Another recent rumour was started by an old patent filed by Rockstar in 2017:

It sure sounds credible that Rockstar could be looking to tell a story that involves gentrification and the creep of capitalism – fertile ground for some fairly easy satire, dare we say it? A changing city that responds to the player’s actions in the story, though, is a pretty compelling idea.

One tidbit to surface about the game’s story relates to its setting in time. Since people are speculating that it could return to Vice City, there have been questions over whether the game will be set in the 1980s again. According to prolific leaker Tom Henderson, though, it’ll be a modern-day title like GTA 5.

Henderson has been proven right a fair few times in the past, so this is an interesting development for sure.

More recently, we’ve heard from a leaker that the game might feature GTA 4’s Nico Bellic, who gets references in GTA 5 but hasn’t actually appeared again since his expansions wrapped up. As with many GTA leaks, it could just be for GTA Online at some point, but it’s an exciting potential tie-in between releases in the series.

So, for now, it seems you can expect a double-protagonist story, set in Miami, and Jason Schreier’s major report in July 2022 also indicated that the game will go a little easier on its jokes than past titles, especially where punching down is concerned.

That hopefully means fewer jokes at the expense of minorities and the disenfranchised, and more punches upward at the systems of oppression they’re subject to.

We’ll keep adding more details to this round-up as and when new information comes out or actual announcements are made, so be sure to keep checking back.

Related

How to find and play Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy on Netflix when it releases

Netflix Games has the exclusive mobile launch of GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. Here’s how to find and play it when it releases.

GTA VI online

So far, we haven’t seen any mentions of the next GTA Online. For now, Rockstar seems happy with developing the GTA V-based GTA Online, so it’s possible that the company will just stick with it for the time being.

However, seeing how profitable GTA Online has been over the years, we’re quite sure that Rockstar is also working on a next-gen GTA Online experience, and we just haven’t seen any news of it yet.