GTA 6 is officially under development. After years of speculation, speculation, and hope, Rockstar Games revealed in February 2022 that it is developing the next Grand Theft Auto game.
“Given GTAV’s remarkable lifespan, we’re aware that many of you have been asking us about a new Grand Theft Auto game,” the release states. “Our objective with each new project is to improve what we’ve previously produced greatly — and we’re thrilled to reveal that active work on the next Grand Theft Auto title is well underway.
We look forward to releasing further information as soon as it becomes available, so please remain tuned to the Rockstar Newswire for formal announcements.”
As far as announcements go, this is a low-key affair, especially for a title with an audience as ravenous for information as GTA 6. However, it truly does feel like a formal confirmation of something already occurring.
After all, GTA 6 has been reported for years, with a report from Kotaku saying that a “new chapter in the Grand Theft Auto series” was in the early stages of production in April 2020.
At the moment, there is a great deal we don’t know about GTA 6. We’re still waiting for a release date and a setting – in terms of time and location – but plenty of rumors and conjecture flying around may provide clues as to what to anticipate.
At the very least, the recent release of GTA 5 on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox One X consoles may indicate how crisp the game will appear on the next generation of devices.
Are you interested in learning more? Please continue reading to learn everything we know about GTA 6.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Release Date
While Rockstar Games has officially confirmed that GTA 6 is under development, it has not specified a release date. However, several speculations and rumors indicate when we could get our hands on Grand Theft Auto 6.
Rockstar Games acknowledged that GTA 6 is in “active production” and that this “new chapter in the Grand Theft Auto series” was in “early development” as of April 2020, according to a Kotaku article.
According to Kotaku, this next edition will be a “moderately sized release” (thus, still rather large) that will be “extended with frequent updates throughout time.” As a result, the game may be further advanced than we anticipated.
While the Kotaku story did not provide a release date for GTA 6, publisher Take-Two Interactive’s marketing budget may have provided the most reliable GTA 6 release date suggestion.
This prompted industry expert Jeff Cohen to believe that the rise is due to the anticipated release of GTA 6 around this time frame (which now looks likely).
In a message to investors contained in VentureBeat’s story, Cohen said that previous marketing budgets accurately forecasted the arrival of other major Take-Two Interactive titles, including Red Dead Redemption 2.
If my prediction is right, GTA 6 should be released between April 2023 and March 2024. Originally scheduled to occur in the fiscal year 2023, this increase has been moved back to the fiscal year 2024. If GTA 6 were the source of this rise, this would imply a delay.
Additionally, a press release announcing Take-Two Interactive’s acquisition of Zynga included a section on “Strategic Rationale and Stockholder Value Creation” that stated: “Looking ahead, the combined company is expected to deliver a 14% compound annual growth rate… over the three years from Take-Fiscal Two’s Years 2021 to 2024.”
Stephen Totilo of Axios, a Jefferies analyst, stated: “there are only a handful of titles that can…provide management with the confidence to issue such aggressive guidance; we expect at least one. Rockstar IP will be launched by FY24.”
Now that Rockstar Games has revealed it is working on a new Grand Theft Auto, it is probable that the surge is due to this new title, which might push the release date of GTA 6 to between April 2023 and March 2024.
This 2024 surge matches leaker Tom Henderson’s release date forecast for Grand Theft Auto 6. The well-known leaker, most known for his (usually) correct Battlefield and Call of Duty leaks, just shared a video with a slew of supposed GTA 6 facts. Based on his sources, Henderson believes in the video that GTA 6 will not debut until between 2024 and 2025.
Henderson cites many explanations for this. The most significant is that Rockstar Games has reportedly placed a high premium on “staff welfare,” with the firm attempting to avoid a crunch mentality.
Henderson also stated that Rockstar held off on announcing the game until it was certain it would reach its release date to avoid any delays, but without requiring staff to work excessively long hours to fulfill a deadline.
Additionally, Henderson believes that GTA 6 will be available only on the PlayStation 5, Xbox One X/S, and PC. Given the present PS5 and Xbox Series X shortages, Rockstar Games appears to be waiting until these platforms have a “large enough market” – until the vast majority of gamers can obtain them.
Henderson cited the popularity of GTA 5 as a third major factor for this estimated 2024/2025 release date, suggesting that Rockstar would likely not want to release GTA 6 while its predecessor is still so successful.
Bloomberg writer Jason Schreier later confirmed Henderson’s forecast, who stated that Henderson’s statements “corroborate what I’ve heard.”
The publication date of 2024 appears to be a fairly safe assumption; however, one leaker believes that this may be wishful thinking. Chris’ Klippel, creator of Rockstar Mag (who has previously leaked accurate Rockstar Game news), claims that while the developer has reached a significant development milestone and will likely reveal GTA 6 properly before the end of 2022, he does not expect Grand Theft Auto to release before the end of 2024.
“I believe a (legitimate) announcement before the end of the year is doable,” Klippel tweeted. “In any event, I don’t see the game being released until beyond 2024.”
We’ll have to wait until Rockstar Games officially confirms GTA 6’s release date to find out for definite, but based on current rumors, it probably won’t be until later this year – and certainly not in 2022.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer
Regrettably, Rockstar Games did not provide a trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 alongside its announcement, implying that the company is approaching the unveiling of Grand Theft Auto 6 differently than it has in the past.
Rockstar Games teased an announcement for both GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 a few days before releasing the game’s debut teaser.
However, Rockstar did not tease an announcement or reveal the game with a teaser; instead, the news was contained in a community post, making it fairly impossible to anticipate whether a trailer would truly be released soon.
If a Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer is released, you’ll know about it because the internet will erupt — and, of course, we’ll let you know as well.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Maps
Rockstar Games did not specify where Grand Theft Auto 6 will take us in its introduction. Still, several theories imply a range of Grand Theft Auto 6 settings (with some more believable than others).
Although no official claims have been made, and it’s difficult to determine whether rumors are true, every web tidbit and delicious gossip piece points to GTA 6’s map being very vast.
We’re not even talking about city-sized big; we’re talking about perhaps the entire United States of America massive.
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One of the most significant Grand Theft Auto 6 setting speculations came from The Know’s YouTube channel, which stated that GTA 6 is being created under the codename Project Americas.
The codename is presumably derived from the fact that players will be able to travel between the United States and South America in the game, albeit the main of the action will take place in the former.
This, combined with the source’s assumption that the game would be mostly set in Vice City (Rockstar’s version of Miami), implies that there may be a concentration on drug-running, a la Narcos, and Tom Cruise’s Made in America, especially if Rockstar maintains the 1980s setting.
Another now-deleted Reddit post supported some of The Know Report’s accusations. According to the Reddit user who posted the information, the game, dubbed Project Americas, has been in development since 2015 but was shelved as Red Dead Redemption 2 took center stage.
According to the article, GTA 6 will be vast, spanning numerous decades (the 1970s through the 1980s) and places (Vice City, another Liberty City, and another fictional city based on Rio de Janeiro).
The game will supposedly focus on Ricardo’s single-player character and follow their tale as a growing drug boss, drawing heavily on Netflix’s Narcos series.
The tale will purportedly be delivered in chapters, with a strong focus on visual representations of time passing as the story advances. While no release date is specified, the post indicates that the game will be exclusive to the next generation (a claim that several reports have corroborated).
While the entirety of the claim seems improbable (even the poster states that due to the game’s pre-alpha condition, things are likely to change), that does not imply some components are impossible.
Following these speculations, a series of ‘leaked’ photos have been circulating online since early 2020, purporting to depict areas of the main GTA 6 map – and correlating with the Project Americas rumor.
There have been four map leaks, each of which appears to reveal a different area of the overall map. Fans have speculated on the location of each piece of the map, with locales such as Rio de Janeiro, the Everglades, and Colombia suggested.