‘GTA VI’: Everything we know so far about Rockstar’s new video game

14 Abr ‘GTA VI’: Everything we know so far about Rockstar’s new video game

‘GTA VI’ is in its final stages of development. And although Rockstar hasn’t provided any further details about specific dates, project status, or other issues, the hype is in the air. Every time a piece of information or potential technical issue about the upcoming game is leaked, the internet explodes, trending topics soar, and players wonder if this new installment will revolutionize the industry.

To answer these questions, or at least begin to, we’ve scoured the web for everything we know so far about the upcoming ‘GTA VI’ and answered them.

What is the release date for ‘GTA VI’?
The game will arrive for PS5 and Xbox in fall 2025. In the first trailer, Rockstar only mentioned 2025, but in its earnings report for the fiscal year ending in 2024, it was more specific.

One thing we already knew before the announcement: Rockstar claimed it had been developing the game since before April 2020. If we have to draw a comparison, ‘GTA V’ began development in 2008 and was released in 2013, giving ‘GTA VI’ a tentative release date of 2025. Rockstar seemed to pseudo-confirm this by talking about releases that will set “new standards in our industry” for fiscal year 2025, that is, starting in 2024.

Another detail provided by Rockstar that suggested we wouldn’t have to wait five years of development is that the company has already announced that the game will be “more compact” in size and will grow over time, suggesting a development that won’t be as complex as previous releases. For now, Rockstar employees have already been asked to abandon teleworking and face the final months of development. Expectations are sky-high: the Financial Times estimates that Rockstar will earn around $1 billion in console pre-orders alone. They also estimate that during its first year of life, the game will generate $3.2 billion in revenue, double what it did in 2013.

We can say with almost complete certainty (although nothing is official) that we’ll see ‘GTA VI’ on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, as the first trailer suggests, and, also with certainty, but possibly some time after the initial launch, as is typical for Rockstar, on PC. In this regard, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick stated that “the lack of ads is not something that’s set in stone.” In other words, we shouldn’t take the absence of ads as a sign of anything.

It’s doubtful that the studio will waste time bringing the game to PS4 and Xbox One, although the franchise’s track record and its multiplicity of formats raise some concerns. Incidentally, the low stocks of Sony and Microsoft consoles were what led some analysts to believe that 2024 was still too early for the launch, and they were right.

Vice City and, beyond that, Leonida’s condition are what the trailer confirms. Before that, there have been rumors, some more reliable than others. There is talk, obviously, of an absolutely monstrous layout (despite other sources that speak of a more contained space with successive expansions), and the specialized channel ‘Inside Gaming’ reports that the project is being developed under the codename ‘Project Americas’.

For a time, the possibility was considered that it could travel not only throughout the entire country, but directly throughout the entire American continent. Tom Henderson already hinted that it might not go that far.

The game’s theme is rumored to be related to drug trafficking, which would make sense of this return to Vice City (as Rockstar’s Miami is especially suited as a bridge between the two Americas). Other rumors (for example, a now-defunct Reddit post) spoke of different eras and new cities, such as one based on Rio de Janeiro. Again, Henderson contradicted this opinion. This same leak also mentioned a female protagonist, for the first time in the series’ history, of Latin origin, and another character who would turn the plot into a story with Bonnie and Clyde influences.

In the Q3 2021 earnings report, Strauss Zelnick stated that they want to “create a powerful single-player experience, a story-driven experience. And Rockstar has always been known for great stories and great single-player experiences,” but without closing themselves off to the possibilities that multiplayer has opened up to them in recent years.

The last official word from Rockstar executives about the game dates back to May 2023, when Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke about Rockstar Games’ ambitious goals for the game in an interview with The Aarthi and Sriram Show. He states that “a challenge that people at Rockstar face every time there’s a new version of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ is that, on the one hand, it has to be something you’ve never seen before, and it has to reflect the feeling that we have about ‘GTA’. That’s a big challenge for the team. Now, Rockstar’s response is simply to strive for perfection; to strive for nothing less than perfection.”