May 2, 2025: We now have full confirmation of the GTA 6 release date from Rockstar Games.
When is GTA 6 coming out? Given how many years it takes to create open worlds of the same caliber as GTA 5, it’s no surprise that Rockstar Games has already spent years developing GTA 6. Rockstar prefers to keep its secrets close to its chest until close to the end of development, but Take-Two has now confirmed when exactly we can expect it to arrive.
The Grand Theft Auto 6 release date has certainly been a long time coming. Early gameplay leaks of GTA 6 surfaced online last year, along with lines of source code and development footage for the open-world game. There have been plenty of rumors and speculation surrounding the release date since then, but we finally have confirmation of the GTA 6 launch window, story, and setting. Here’s all the latest on the GTA 6 release date window, including trailers and news, right here on PCGamesN.
GTA 6 release date window
The GTA 6 release date is confirmed for Tuesday, May 26, 2026. This is the release window for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, while the GTA 6 PC release is likely to arrive later that year.
GTA 6 was originally scheduled for 2025 by Take-Two during its quarterly earnings call for fiscal year 2024. The official announcement included a statement from Rockstar Games founder Sam Houser: “Grand Theft Auto 6 continues our efforts to push the limits of what’s possible in highly immersive, story-driven open-world experiences. We’re thrilled to be able to share this new vision with players everywhere.”
The first GTA 6 trailer again set the release year for 2025, and a follow-up press release from Rockstar PR clarified that this is a console-specific release date. It’s likely that this remains the case for the revised May 2026 date, and we expect the GTA 6 PC release date will fall later in the year.
GTA 6 PC release date estimate
The latest GTA 6 PC release date projection comes from Corsair Gaming’s VP of Finance, Ronald van Veen. “My understanding now it’s going to come out in the fall for console, and then early 2026 for PC,” he said, as reported by VGC’s Andy Robinson.
This prediction is quite a bit earlier than usual for Rockstar, but given GTA 6’s popularity, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it expedite the migration to other platforms.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick addressed the GTA 6 PC release date directly during the TD Cowen 52nd Annual Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference. “Rockstar has an approach to platforms which we’ve seen before, and they will make more announcements in due time,” Zelnick said.
Zelnick later went on to tell IGN that Take-Two has “seen PC become a much more and more important part of what used to be a console business, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that trend continue.” While console sales have fallen in recent years, he surmises that a new console generation and global tariffs will drive consumers back into that ecosystem. Nevertheless, he reiterated that “the trend that you’d want to focus on is this increasing share of the market that is reflected in PC.”
Take-Two’s stock received a massive jump in share price as a result of the GTA 6 launch announcement, and we expect that trend to continue as more is revealed. Industry analysts claim that GTA 6 is projected to generate over $1 billion in pre-order sales alone. The crime game is unquestionably the property that will allow Take-Two to meet its target of “over $8 billion in net bookings and over $1 billion in adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow.”
GTA 6 Game Pass
Whether we’re talking about the console or PC release, there is some certainty that Grand Theft Auto 6 won’t be coming to Game Pass on day one. In a recent interview, Zelnick confirmed that a GTA 6 Game Pass day one launch will not be happening.
GTA 6 delays
While GTA 6 delays are at the forefront of any fan’s mind, there is currently no confirmation that a delay is planned. Instead, Rockstar remains committed to the GTA 6 release window. As of January 2025, the GTA 6 launch is still on track following the Take-Two quarterly earnings report.
Obbe Vermeij, previously a Rockstar technical director of 14 years, weighed in on the possibility of a delay. “The decision to delay gtaIV was made 4 months or so before the original release date,” he wrote on X/Twitter. “Any further and it’s hard to make the call. R* is probably not in a position to determine whether they will hit 2025 until May-ish.”
However, Rockstar talent acquisition specialist Georgio Jankowski put the call out for applications on LinkedIn, claiming that 2025 is “shaping up to be one of the most exciting years ahead here at Rockstar.” While it’s not enough to quash delay rumors, Jankowski’s post suggests internal confidence in that 2025 release date.
However, that’s not to say a GTA 6 delay hasn’t been raised by sources several times in the past. A recent GTA 6 actor interview hinted at “another situation happening in that world that may be coming out in 2025, 2026”, sparking fresh speculation that the release date might slip. However, the most significant GTA 6 delay rumors came from a staff member at GTABase, a dedicated Rockstar news site.
“GTA VI has been internally delayed by Rockstar Games and they’re already decided on the early to mid 2026 release window,” it was alleged on X/Twitter. While this information was purportedly sourced from “multiple devs across two studios,” Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier assured fans this GTA 6 delay was not true.
A Kotaku report in March 2024 also suggested that Rockstar may miss its release window “as production reportedly falls behind.” Again, Schreier refuted these claims as an “overblown concern” after consulting his own sources. According to Kotaku’s source, any delay to 2026 would be considered a “fallback plan.”
GTA 6 is also exempt from the videogame voice actor strike. The SAG-AFTRA website cautions talent attached to the project with the following notice: “While not struck, this game is produced by a struck company.” Talent attached to GTA 6 may continue to work on the project, minimizing the chance of a prospective delay.
GTA 6 trailers
The first GTA 6 trailer was released earlier than anticipated due to widespread leaks. It was originally scheduled to drop on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, but Rockstar Games made it available to view a day earlier due to the breach. After a year of rabid speculation, there remains no concrete sign of trailer 2 dropping any time soon.
“The anticipation for that title may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property,” Strauss Zelnick said to Bloomberg. “We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement.” According to Zelnick, Rockstar’s strategy is to “provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window” to balance excitement with anticipation.
This marketing strategy also meets the approval of Mike York, ex-Rockstar New England animator. “The more they’re silent, the better it is,” he stated in a YouTube video. “This brings the fans together […] All these theories are great. They create hype, they create talk, they create mystery behind the games.”
Trailer 1 is approximately 91 seconds long and verifies rumors that the series is returning to Vice City. It features several prominent GTA 6 locations, including the Malibu Club and Ocean Drive. We see our two main protagonists, Lucia and Jason, thrown together in unusual circumstances and forced to work together in a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde situation.
A new trailer was hotly anticipated after a GTA 6 trailer playlist suddenly appeared on the official YouTube channel, but this turned out to be an automatically generated playlist.
A further GTA 6 trailer 2 release date theory convinced some fans that a surprise trailer drop was coming in late November. This so-called ‘moon theory’ tracks the phases of the moon as it appears in GTA Online promotional material. While this theory has since been debunked, it’s worth bearing in mind that Rockstar has hidden easter eggs for GTA 6 in previous GTA Online updates.
Amid all this speculation, Red Dead Redemption 2’s Arthur Morgan has weighed in as a voice of reason. “Please stop guessing when GTAVI trailer 2 is dropping. Please,” voice actor Roger Clark begged on X. “You haven’t the first f***ing clue and it’s beyond obvious now.” Naturally, some fans have joked whether this statement could, in itself, tease the trailer.
GTA 6 leaks
Recent reports suggested that the GTA 6 release date had leaked via XUruguay. According to 80 Level, the Uruguayan videogame store’s online listing claimed GTA 6 would be released on September 17, 2025 as a PS5 exclusive. While XUruguay initially claimed it works directly with PlayStation to source its information, the listing has now been removed.
On September 18, 2022, 90 videos showing off 53 minutes and 26 seconds worth of test footage were leaked in one of the biggest data breaches in history. In the early test footage, we can see the player taking the role of a male and a female character as part of a Bonnie and Clyde-like duo named Jason and Lucia, as reported by Bloomberg earlier that year.
One of the standout clips shows the player controlling Lucia as she and Jason hold up a diner, like the couple at the end of Pulp Fiction. Other videos show Lucia standing on a street corner, watching the traffic go by in broad daylight, while Jason visits a nightclub. Since the footage became public, the GTA 6 leaker has been arrested.
A further GTA 6 leak occurred on TikTok just days before the GTA 6 trailer release date, which included a brief glimpse of the map. However, this leak was quickly overshadowed by the GTA 6 trailer itself, which leaked on X (formerly Twitter) less than 24 hours prior to the official release. Rockstar Games responded by releasing the trailer wholesale shortly after the discovery of the leak, stating, “Our trailer has leaked, so please watch the real thing.”
A Swiss retailer also may have leaked the price of GTA 6, with a listing allegedly appearing on their website stating that GTA 6 would be around the $100 mark. The product has since been pulled from the retailer’s site. 100 dollars is a lot more than your regular triple-A game, but for something of this size, we wouldn’t be surprised if this was true.
GTA 6 news
Despite the major setback of leaked game footage, Rockstar released a statement to clarify that while it is “extremely disappointed” that early footage has leaked, work on “the next Grand Theft Auto will continue as planned”. The developers also assure fans that they “will update everyone again soon and, of course, will properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready”.
At the very least, Rockstar has been developing GTA 6 since the community update on February 4, 2022, when Rockstar confirmed that “active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway”. However it materializes, we can rest assured it will be “special”. As part of the studio’s announcement that it was winding down support for Red Dead Online, Rockstar confirmed that more resources were being diverted to “the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series” and that it wants to ensure the new game “exceed[s] players’ expectations.”
Zelnick suggests, in a 2019 interview with GamesIndustry.biz, that better development tools and bigger teams could shorten the gaps between game releases. It could also mean that “games may be a bit shorter” while still being robustly supported post-launch.
Mitigating GTA 6 crunch time is another reason the next GTA 6 could be shorter. As Kotaku says in its report in 2020: “One plan that management has laid out for the next game, a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, is to start with a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar’s standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time, which may help mitigate stress and crunch”.
Industry analyst Matthew Ball has forecast that GTA 6 could cost $100 in a report titled The State of Video Gaming in 2025. This potential price hike would break the “$70 barrier” and pave the way for publishers and developers to correct industry deflation. Take-Two has yet to confirm GTA 6’s price point.
GTA 6 story
The GTA 6 trailer gave us concrete details surrounding the GTA 6 story. It’s quickly apparent that GTA 6 is set in modern-day Vice City and not the ’80s, thanks to the proliferation of social media posts that provide quick snapshots of everyday life in Rockstar’s exaggerated version of Miami, including alligator-wrangling, drive-by twerking, and a middle-aged woman in a nightie and slippers wielding two hammers. While the prospect of in-universe social media has appeared previously in GTA 5, this latest representation of Vice City already proves that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
We also get our first proper introduction to Lucia, the first of GTA 6’s two main protagonists, as she appears in orange prison garb, conversing with a prison counselor. When asked why she ended up in prison, she shrugs: “Bad luck, I guess.” It’s unclear whether this cutscene takes place at the beginning or the end of her story, but the GTA 6 story is set to chart the course of her time on the wrong side of the law.
We also get a glimpse of Jason, the second GTA 6 protagonist, and Lucia’s partner-in-crime, although he appears to be a less prominent figure in the GTA 6 story than Lucia. The two have an intimate relationship à la Bonnie and Clyde, though their depth of romantic feelings for one another is yet to be revealed. In a brief voiceover, Lucia appears to be addressing him as she declares: “The only way that we get through this is by sticking together. Being a team.”
This teamwork is reflected in a fraught cutscene as they flee the cops in a getaway car, dollar bills clutched in Lucia’s hand. We also see multiple instances of them storming into convenience stores and other buildings, faces obscured and guns raised. One thing’s for sure: this is one crime spree we don’t want to miss.
While leaks have shown off Lucia in the past, rumors were circulating about a playable female character long beforehand. Eagle-eyed users from GTA Forums picked up on some clues, keeping track of some of the voice talent. One actor, Natonia Monet, originally lists on her CV a performance as “Tamara” under a project known by the codename “Fireball”. This profile has since been altered, but as one of their users points out, “Fireball” is the name of a song by Miami-born artist Pitbull.
As for other voice actors, we might see a GTA 6 John Cena character join the story. This follows a cryptic Instagram post from the actor and professional wrestler himself, whose credits extend to videogames as well as film and TV. While this could just be an expression of excitement for the release date, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we’ll encounter Cena on the mean streets of Vice City in the future.
As for the GTA 6 map itself, some fans speculate that if the calculations from the GTA 6 leak were true, this version of Vice City and the surrounding areas could be twice as large as GTA 5’s Los Santos.
A former dev has suggested that the GTA 6 map should be smaller and more densely packed. However, as leaks have continued to trickle out of Rockstar, modders have recreated the GTA 6 map in GTA 5’s engine which provides a sense of its massive scale.
Rumors also suggest that the campaign’s map will change through DLC to include new areas or updates to existing ones based on whatever theme the DLC has. It’s not just the campaign map that changes either, as the new GTA Online mode may take place on an ‘evolving map’ that includes alterations and tweaks with every update.
GTA 6 gameplay
As for what GTA 6 gameplay we can see from the leaks, there’s not much different from GTA 5. Ex-Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij predicts that “people might be a little disappointed” on the GTA 6 release date in an interview with creator SanInPlay, though he maintained it will still “be the best game out there.”
In one of the leaks, we see Lucia – presumably controlled by the player – holding up a diner while trying to keep the hostages from escaping by shooting them in the back as they run. We also see Jason and Lucia evading the cops by stealing one of their cars and driving around the block. Jason also leans out of a moving car while shooting with an assault rifle.
As you might expect, driveable vehicles include GTA 6 cars and boats, while the Metro allows players to effectively travel across the city. In addition, the cars seem to allow players to adjust the wheel’s position, chair angles, and other controls. However you choose to get around, ex-Rockstar developer Ben Hinchcliffe asserts that creative freedom will be a priority, to “still allow the player to do […] weird things.”
Some raw test footage shows more about the movement mechanics, including a cover system, crouching, and crawling. The playable character can also cover their face with their hands or GTA 6 weapons to prevent headshots. At one point in the footage, we see Jason looking in a convenience store while using a new vision ability. It looks similar to how Deadeye in Red Dead Redemption works, but right now, we only see it adjust the color of the footage.
A LinkedIn account alleging to be Rockstar Games principal engine programmer Ryan Woods lists Grand Theft Auto VI as his latest project since May 2020. His list of responsibilities include overseeing Rockstar’s in-house RAGE engine, including “ray tracing” and “procedural generation for objects and game environments.”
A recent report suggests a GTA 6 metaverse is in the works, similar to Fortnite and Roblox. This would be powered by user-generated content, allowing creators to “modify the game’s environment and assets to bring their own intellectual property – and potentially their brand sponsors – into GTA’s virtual sandbox.” This comes after rumors that Rockstar Games has reached out to Roblox and Fortnite creators to discuss how they might create in-game custom content for GTA 6.
And that’s our roundup of the GTA 6 release date window news. We still have a long time to wait until the sequel to one of the best PC games arrives. In the meantime, we have compiled a list of GTA 6 cheats that we’d love to see, plus the latest on whether GTA 6 will be on Steam for those of you who prefer playing games on Valve’s platform. Alternatively, check out Grand Taking Ages, a management game that parodies GTA 6’s development, or try your hand at the predicted Grand Theft Auto 6 requirements over on PCGameBenchmark to answer the question… “Can I run GTA 6?”
