GTA 6: everything we know about Rockstar’s upcoming open world blockbuster

We’ve all hoped as much for years, but it’s official now - GTA 6 is a real game. It’s in development, and it’s coming (reasonably) soon.

This is the biggest videogame franchise on Earth we’re talking about, so it doesn’t take much to generate hype. Rockstar could have tweeted out a picture of a number ‘6’ drawn in a greasy fingerprint on the back of a dirty van and the internet still would have gone absolutely apoplectic. It just happens that the GTA developer opted to drop an actual trailer to announce GTA 6 instead.

Let’s see this GTA 6 trailer, then?

Oh, go on then.

We pored over the details in our GTA trailer analysis piece when it first landed, but as you can see there’s a lot to drink in here. We’ve got a setting: a return to Vice City where Tommy Vercetti’s ‘80s pastiche took place back in 2002. We’ve got a lot of Florida Man cultural references. We’ve got a release date, a central character, and plenty more to over-analyse before Rockstar throws us another bone.

When’s the GTA 6 release date?

You should probably be sitting for this: it’s not out for another two years.

Currently the release date is simply ‘2025’. If you want to start pinning bits of red string to corkboards about it, Rockstar generally tends to release games in the back half of the year - Red Dead Redemption 2 was released in October 2018, and GTA V came out in September 2013. That’s hardly grounds to start booking your annual leave in Q3/4 2025 quite yet, but it’s the best clue we’ve got as to exactly where in the calendar year GTA 6’s release might fall.

How much do we know about the world map?

Well, we know it’s Vice City. However, it’s extremely unlikely that Rockstar will whack some 2025-grade textures over the same city layout that featured in 2002’s GTA: Vice City and clock off early for the day.

While Vice City’s first appearance in 3D era GTA was about parodying Miami Vice, Scarface, and Eighties excess, here it appears to be more of a landscape for Rockstar to explore ‘Florida Man’ culture, the often-memed phenomenon of bizarre crimes and happenings from the Sunshine State that the media loves to cover in as salacious a form as possible. It’s very present day, in other words.

As for the layout and size of the map itself, the trailer showed us everglades and other natural vistas so we’re expecting a considerable area to roam outside city limits. GTA V gave us exactly that with Blaine County, so there’s no reason to expect GTA 6’s map would be smaller.

Who will we be playing as?

The rumours in the run-up to this announcement were that GTA would centre around a Bonnie and Clyde story of sorts. Two lawbreaking lovers, on the run from the authorities, raising hell wherever they go and then having a kiss and a cuddle to wind down afterwards.

The reveal trailer doesn’t outright confirm that theory, but it does hint at it. We’re introduced to Lucia, who’s speaking to her parole officer in the Vice City clink. We see clips of her robbing convenience stores with a masked accomplice and making off with their ill-gotten gains together in a getaway car. Is it her lover? Based on absolutely nothing, we’re saying definitely, concretely, incontrovertibly, yes it is. Or not. Let’s wait and see on that one.

What platforms will it release on?

According to a press release issued by Rockstar at the time of the reveal trailer drop, GTA 6 has been confirmed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

That leaves a few other platforms out in the cold for now. We’ve had no word on whether it’ll be making its way to PS4 or Xbox one, nor PC. Looking back at how previous Rockstar releases have approached multi-platform releases though, we’d say a PC version is all but inevitable. It might be a year later, or even two, but GTA and Red Dead titles always end up on PC.

Old gen console versions are less likely. Sorry.

What was all this about GTA 6 leaks?

Sadly, it’s true. Back in 2022 Rockstar released a statement confirming that sensitive internal documents had been accessed and shared online.

“We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto.

"We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. We remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations.”

As curious as we all are about big upcoming games, nobody wants to see them shared in that manner, completely outside the developer’s control. It takes a bit of graft to make games like GTA, after all.

Fortunately, the leak was controlled fairly quickly and for most people, the reveal trailer was their first look at GTA 6.

What now, then?

Now we wait. We’re expecting to hear considerably more before the game comes out in 2024, including a first look at GTA 6 gameplay some time in 2024 and an introduction to the story. Will it be a tale of gun-toting outlaw lovers after all? The trailers will tell all.