Believe it or not, it has been over a decade since the last GTA game. While tons of people are still dumping hundreds of hours into GTA Online, we’re likely less than a year away from the generation-defining moment when Grand Theft Auto 6 drops. As time crawls painfully slow toward that eventual release date, we have a lot more solid ground to cover in terms of what GTA 6 will offer. There’s no question that this is the most anticipated upcoming PlayStation 5 game, even compared to Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Monster Hunter Wilds. If you’re checking our list of all upcoming video games to see if GTA 6 has a date yet, this is where you need to be instead, so let’s hotwire a car and pull off a heist to get all the information there is about GTA 6.
Of course, GTA 6 is also the biggest name on the list of upcoming Xbox Series X games and upcoming PC games, but it isn’t on our upcoming Switch games list.
GTA 6 release date window
GTA 6 is set to release sometime in fall 2025, according to reports. Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive, confirmed the launch window in a May 2024 earnings call.
“Our outlook reflects a narrowing of Rockstar Games’ previously established window of calendar 2025 to fall of calendar 2025 for Grand Theft Auto VI. We are highly confident that Rockstar Games will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience, and our expectations for the commercial impact of the title continue to increase,” Zelnick explained in a press release discussing the outlook for fiscal year 2025.
During an interview with CNBC in November 2024, Zelnick once again commented on the release window for GTA 6, stating, “Well, there is slippage in the industry and we’re not immune from that. However, we narrowed the timing because we are highly confident in that timing.” So, while there is always a chance problems arise that cause a delay, everything appears to be on track for the game to stick to that fall 2025 window.
One point of debate around GTA 6 is the game’s price. Some analysts have suspected that this could be the first game to be priced between $80 and $100, thus raising the price for future games to follow. Because of the cultural impact, GTA 6 is certain to have, it would likely be able to get away with that price jump without losing much, if any, sales. The idea is that, even after the increase to $70, game prices have not increased to reflect the cost of development and another increase is needed. Rockstar hasn’t commented on whether or not the base version of GTA 6 will cost more than the current $70 standard so this is complete speculation with many other developers and commentators weighing in for and against this possibility.
GTA 6 trailer
The GTA 6 trailer was announced to be released on December 5, 2023, but was dropped a day early after a leaked version found its way online. Regardless, we now have our first look at the world and characters.
The protagonists of GTA 6 will be a pair rather than a single character or trio like past games. First is Lucia, who appears to have some criminal background based on her appearing in a prison uniform in the trailer. The other lead is a male character who we don’t have a name for just yet, but is clearly her partner in crime — and romance by the looks of it.
Perhaps the most important part of any GTA game is the setting, and for GTA 6, Rockstar is bringing us back to Vice City. Of course, this time we’ll be seeing it in the modern day instead of the late 1980s like before. The trailer shows a wide range of environments, from beaches and bustling city streets to suburbs and swamps.
GTA 6 platforms
GTA 6 is only officially confirmed to be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S at launch. While we can safely say this game won’t come to last-generation consoles or the Switch, it not being on PC does seem like a strange omission. GTA 5 did take two years to come to PC, but Red Dead Redemption 2 arrived only about two weeks later, so it is possible that the PC release might just come slightly later, but that would still be a big disappointment for that player base. That does leave the next Nintendo console up in the air as well.
GTA 6 gameplay
The trailer didn’t show any real gameplay for GTA 6 and instead was all cinematic. Based on that, though, we can assume quite a bit about what the game will play like.
Just to get it out of the way, yes, you can rest assured knowing that GTA 6 will feature plenty of shooting, driving, and criminal activities. The trailer showed off robberies, high-speed chases, and plenty of partying. Beyond that, however, we mainly have to speculate or go off of very old leaks. We do think that GTA 6 will continue the trend of allowing players to swap between first- and third-person perspectives. This was added to GTA 5 and included at launch for Red Dead Redemption 2.
If the trailer is any indication, the amount of characters and action on-screen at any time means the world will be more densely packed than ever. Each NPC looks unique and appears very much “alive” while interacting with the world. Aside from shooting and running them over, we hope to see a lot more ways to interact with regular NPCs.
In a world that big, expect tons of side activities, minigames, and other distractions to discover and waste away hours on. Each title has upped the ante in terms of extras, and we don’t think GTA 6 will fall short here.
According to a former Rockstar developer, Mike York speaking on Kiwi Talkz, we shouldn’t expect GTA 6 to run at 60 FPS on consoles, even the PS5 Pro. When asked what framerate he thinks the game will target, he stated that “I don’t know if they’ll be able to pull off 60fps. I don’t think so. I think they’re gonna be shooting for 30fps – and a locked 30fps, meaning it never dips below that. They’re gonna try to optimize as much as they can to where it never goes below 30. But it can be bumped up to 40, 41, 52, whatever, and I bet you, like, later, once it’s on PC, it’ll propbably get super optimized and changed and new graphics cards that come out and you’ll be able to run it at 60fps probably at that time.”
Talking about the PS5 specifically York said “I don’t think [the] initial release it’ll come out at 60fps unless it’s getting those 60fps by [using] an AI upscaler thing like the PlayStation is doing, unless something is coming in and helping it get those 60fps,” York explains. “I don’t think it’ll get the 60fps raw out the gate on a base console. PS5, for instance. Maybe PS5 Pro, or whatever, but I still don’t think so.”
Now, while York did work at Rockstar he hasn’t been with the company since 2017 so isn’t familiar with the current state of the game or what the team is aiming for.
Will GTA 6 have GTA Online?
Arguably the most prominent change that came with GTA V was the implementation of GTA Online. This mode became the backbone of the game, roping in millions of players (and dollars) for a shared experience. The base game is excellent, but GTA Online is what has kept GTA V relevant nearly a decade after launch.
The point is that we’ll almost certainly get some sort of multiplayer functionality with GTA 6. Whether that means the entire game is online only or if there’s a dedicated multiplayer mode like the previous installment remains to be seen — but we can almost guarantee it will have an online mode.
Considering just how successful GTA Online became, it’s unlikely Rockstar will drop multiplayer functionality from the next installment.
Oddly enough, GTA 6’s version of GTA Online apparently won’t include dedicated servers. This comes by way of insider Tez, who said: “Take-Two rejected a proposal for dedicated servers a few years ago. They considered it cost-prohibitive for them.”
The real big question is if this new GTA Online will be available at launch or be a staggered release. The first version came out almost a month after GTA 5, and Red Dead Online took even longer at almost seven months. We don’t expect it to be nearly that long for GTA 6, but Rockstar may want to give players a few weeks to play the main game before tempting them with the online mode. And it would also be like a second launch to get back in the headlines.
One rumor spotted on a GTA forum by a known leaker named Tez2 suggests that GTA Online will be a separate purchase from the base game. They claim that “GTA 6 will be the first game where online is sold separately at launch, while story mode will be part of the full package that covers both. They will have to factor the online standalone price into the total cost. What portion of the base price will be the online’s price? And what would be the story mode upgrade price for those who’ve bought the online standalone?” This should be taken with a massive grain of salt since the leaker doesn’t make any statements about where they are getting this information from, but it is something that Rockstar may consider due to the popularity of GTA Online.
When will you be able to preorder GTA 6?
As expected, GTA 6 preorders aren’t available yet. Since the game isn’t coming until 2025 at the earliest, we don’t anticipate getting any preorder information until that date is nailed down sometime that same year. Of course, it could be even further out if those delays do end up being true. In any case, we will update you with preorder information on GTA 6 as soon as it is available.
