Excitement is mounting for GTA 6. But when will Rockstar Games reveal this highly-anticipated new game?
If you’re keen to know more about GTA 6, the next title in Rockstar’s monolithic open-world crime series, you’re certainly not alone. The game hasn’t been officially announced yet, but that’s never stopped fans hardcore and casual alike from wondering where the franchise will take them next, and when. While excitement over a game that hasn’t been officially unveiled might seem a little premature or optimistic, Grand Theft Auto 6 isn’t simply a pipe dream. It really does seem like a pretty safe bet that the game will eventually be announced. A report from Kotaku claimed that a « new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series » was in the early stages of its development back in April 2020, leading to speculation that this could be GTA 6. However, given recent reports suggest the game could be looking at a 2024/5 release date, it’s probably going to be quite some time before we learn more. Aside from these reports, it just makes a lot of sense that there would be another entry in the long-running series—GTA 5 continues to be a roaring success and is set to receive an expanded and enhanced edition next year. We also just got the long-awaited GTA Trilogy remaster in the form of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition however these remakes haven’t been very well received – we’d recommend you avoid buying the GTA Trilogy until a fix is issued. Still, with Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two resolutely keeping quiet on the topic of a potential Grand Theft Auto 6, there are next to no solid details out there – but there are plenty of rumors to dissect. Read on for all the biggest GTA 6 news and rumors so far. [Update: Did Snoop Dogg just become an unlikely source of GTA 6 rumors about Dr Dre? Read on to find out more.] So when is GTA 6 coming out? Unfortunately, the new GTA 6 hasn’t even been officially announced, never mind given a release date. That means that there’s not much to go on from developer Rockstar Games about Grand Theft Auto 6 at the moment, but it doesn’t mean that we haven’t got a rough idea of when we can expect to get our hands on the new GTA. It seems that it’s still early days for Grand Theft Auto 6, with a Kotaku report claiming that GTA 6, or at least « a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, » was in early development as of April 2020. However, while the Kotaku report didn’t give us an idea of when GTA 6 will release, publisher Take-Two Interactive’s marketing budget may have given us our most solid GTA 6 release date hint. As reported by VentureBeat, Take-Two’s 10-K SEC filing (which lays out financial plans for the next five years) shows that the company expects to spend $89 million on marketing between April 2023, and the end of March 2024 – that’s a huge spike and, as the report points out, more than half the marketing budget expected for any other fiscal year over the next decade. This led industry analyst Jeff Cohen to predict that this spike is because GTA 6 is expected to release within this period. In a note to investors, included in VentureBeat’s report, Cohen pointed out that previous marketing budgets have predicted the releases of other big releases from Take-Two Interactive, including Red Dead Redemption 2. If this prediction is correct then we would expect to see GTA 6 release sometime between April 2023 and March 2024. Originally this spike was expected to take place in the fiscal year 2023, however, it’s been pushed back to 2024. If it is GTA 6 that has caused this spike, this would suggest that a delay has occurred. This 2024 spike almost lines up with leaker Tom Henderson’s GTA 6 release date prediction. The notable leaker, who is primarily known for his (mostly) accurate leaks on Battlefield and Call of Duty, posted a video sharing a bunch of alleged GTA 6 details. In the video, Henderson predicts that GTA 6 isn’t going to release until between 2024 and 2025, based on his sources. There are a few reasons for this, according to Henderson. The biggest is that apparently, Rockstar Games has been focusing heavily on « employee wellbeing » for the past 15 to 16 months, with the developer aiming to avoid crunch culture. Rockstar reportedly doesn’t want to announce the game until it’s confident that it will hit its release date, with an aim to avoid any delays, but wants to do so without making employees work extremely long hours to meet a deadline. In addition, Henderson claims that GTA 6 will only release on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Given the current PS5 and Xbox Series X shortages, Rockstar Games is apparently waiting until there is a « big enough market » for these consoles – in other words, until the majority of players can actually get their hands on them. The third key reason Henderson gave for this predicted 2024/2025 release date is the popularity of GTA 5, claiming that Rockstar would likely not want to release GTA 6 while its predecessor is still so successful. Henderson’s prediction has since been corroborated by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who said that Henderson’s claims « matches up with what I’ve heard ». While a 2024/2025 release date for Grand Theft Auto 6 is further away than we would have hoped, it does make sense when these factors are taken into account. It’s worth noting that Henderson did caveat that he is « not known for GTA 6 leaks » and that viewers should take these rumors will a grain of salt We were hoping to hear something solid about Grand Theft Auto 6 with the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, and then again at E3 2021, but currently, Rockstar seems and Grove Street Games are focusing on GTA Trilogy, as well as the expanded and enhanced version of GTA 5 coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X instead of a sequel. This could also push a release date back, especially given the expanded and enhanced GTA 5 has been delayed from 2021 to 2022. Again, it’s worth noting that GTA 6 hasn’t been confirmed by Rockstar to even be in development, so we can only speculate about the release date. With all this in mind -and the tight-lipped nature of Rockstar – we probably shouldn’t expect to get our hands on GTA 6 any time soon, nor do we expect an announcement for a while yet. The thing about Rockstar Games is that it’s an incredibly secretive developer. No GTA 6 trailer is getting out of that studio unless someone seriously screws up. Just look at what Rockstar did with both GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. It teased an announcement a few days before dropping the first trailer for either game. If there’s a Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, you’ll know about it because the internet will explode – and we’ll let you know too, of course. But we’re not expecting one anytime soon. It’s likely we will see Rockstar following the same pattern as with previous games, publishing a teaser a few days ahead of a full announcement trailer. So what about the GTA 6 map? There’s a plethora of rumors floating around suggesting a variety of settings for Grand Theft Auto 6 – making it hard to nail down which we will actually see in the final game. Although there haven’t been any concrete reports as yet, every online titbit and juicy gossip morsel is pointing towards GTA 6’s map being absolutely massive. We’re even not talking city-size massive, we’re talking potentially the entirety of the United States massive. One of the biggest Grand Theft Auto 6 setting rumors has come from YouTube channel The Know, which claimed that GTA 6 is being developed under the code name Project Americas. The reason for this code name is apparently because players will be able to fly between the US and South America in the game, though the majority of the action will take place in the former. This in combination with the source’s assertion that the game will largely be set in Vice City (the Rockstar version of Miami) suggests there could be a focus on drug-running which would draw on the popularity of shows and movies like Narcos and Tom Cruise’s Made in America. Particularly if Rockstar holds on to that 80s setting. Another, now deleted, post on Reddit seemed to corroborate some of the claims in The Know Report. According to the Reddit poster behind the leak, the game, known as Project Americas, has been in production since 2015, though it was placed on ice while Red Dead Redemption 2 was the focus. The post claimed that GTA 6 could be expansive, set across multiple decades (the 1970s to 1980s) and locations (one of which is Vice City, another Liberty City and another is a fictional city based on Rio de Janeiro). The game will apparently deal with one playable protagonist named Ricardo and play through their story as a rising drug lord with heavy inspiration from Netflix’s Narcos series. The story will allegedly be told through chapters, with a heavy emphasis on the visuals of changes in time as the story progresses. While there’s no estimated release date given, the post says that the plan is to release the game for the next generation only (a claim that several reports have corroborated). While it’s unlikely that the whole report is true (even the poster says that the game’s pre-alpha status means things are likely to change) that’s not to say some elements are impossible. Following these rumors, since early 2020, a series of ‘leaked’ images have been emerging online that allegedly reveal sections of the overall GTA 6 map – and line up with the Project Americas rumor. So far there have been four map leaks in total, each appearing to show a different section of the overall map. Fans have speculated about what each section of the map may be with locations rumored including Rio De Janeiro, the Everglades and Colombia. However, leaker Tom Henderson claims that, while Vice City will be coming to GTA 6 in some capacity, as the Project Americas rumor claims, that the map isn’t as big as previous rumors claim. In addition, Henderson claims that GTA 6 won’t be set be in the 80s or 90s, but instead will have a modern setting. This is apparently to allow the base game to « fit » with GTA Online, with developers wanting « as much freedom as possible to release as many DLCs as possible ». Another, slightly less believable, rumor posted anonymously on Pastebin – which has since been removed (via Comic Book) – claimed that GTA 6 will allow players to travel between several big cities, including Liberty City and Vice City. The poster also claimed you start off as a small-time drug runner before joining an infamous gang and kicking it with the big dogs. The anonymous poster also claimed GTA 6 will feature both major cities along with a vast stretch of highways and Blaine County-like countryside in the middle of it all. While location rumors seem to be leaking in abundance, the anonymous Pastebin post was backed up by review on Glassdoor by a Rockstar Games QA tester, which has since been removed (via Dexerto). The post left a cryptic message that seen the first letter of each sentence spelling out ‘GTA6LSVCLC’. This may be pointing to the potential locations of Grand Theft Auto 6: Los Santos, Vice City, and Liberty City. Wonder what these locations would look like together as an actual map? Graphic designer RealityDesign posted a concept image on GTA Forums, showing what this map could potentially look like. Check it out below: There was also a rumor that GTA 6 would be set in London, which started with a comment from Rockstar Games’ co-founder Dan Houser from an interview with Polygon back in September 2013: “At the moment, it feels like GTA’s DNA is contemporary-ish, American-ish, English-speaking-ish, because that’s what it has been… But that doesn’t necessarily limit it to those, that’s just what we’ve done so far.” However, Houser then shot down a London setting in an interview with The Guardian later that month. Flying in the face of many of these rumors, a report by Christian Today claims that GTA 6 will have a futuristic setting. The Christian Today report also alleges that there might even be time travel involved in the next GTA title. For what it’s worth, we think this would probably plant it a bit too close to Saint’s Row, which is already incredibly similar to Grand Theft Auto and this is probably something Rockstar would be keen to avoid. For our money, we think a return to Vice City in some form is on the cards, which would tie into the rumors mentioned above. But, outside of that, where exactly GTA 6 will be set still remains a mystery for now. Below we’ve collected all of the latest leaks and rumors that hint at when GTA 6 might be launched – and what we can expect from the new game. As always, take these details with a huge pinch of salt – some are old, some are from now-deleted sources and others might just be keen fans getting carried away. Did Snoop Dogg just leak GTA 6 rumors about Dr Dre? Snoop Dogg might have just become an unlikely source of GTA 6 news. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Snoop Dogg revealed that Dre is back in the studio, apparently recording new music for an undisclosed Grand Theft Auto game. “I do know he’s making great f*cking music,“ Snoop told Rolling Stone, when asked what Dre was up to. ”And some of his music is connected to the GTA game that’s coming out. So I think that will be the way that his music will be released, through the GTA video game.” Of course, there’s no guarantee this is GTA 6. There are actually quite a few Grand Theft Auto games on the horizon (in case you haven’t noticed) with a full remastering of Grand Theft Auto 5 on PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto Trilogy: The Definitive Edition remasters. Dr Dre’s music previously featured in 2004’s San Andreas so there’s a small chance this could be related to that Definitive Edition remaster. Or maybe it really is our first hint at what’s going to feature on the soundtrack of GTA 6. Job listing details next-gen VFX A job listing on the official Rockstar site suggests that the developer is looking to raise the bar when it comes to next-gen visuals in its games.
