December will mark 25 years since Rockstar Games’ inception. And they plan to celebrate it with a Grand Theft Auto 6-size bang. Sam Houser, co-founder and President of Rockstar Games, wrote in a short post that the team plans to unveil the first trailer for GTA 6 early next month.
It’ll be our first official look at the franchise’s next entry and confirm the name and location for GTA 6.
A huge leak last year spoiled some of this surprise as it showed early gameplay snippets featuring a female playable character in Vice City (the fictionalized version of Miami featured in 2002’s GTA: Vice City).
What fans want to know is GTA 6’s release date. We can look at previous games to get some hints. GTA IV’s first trailer debuted on March 29, 2007 with the game releasing about a year later in April 2008.
GTA V’s timeline was a little longer between its first trailer and release date. The debut trailer dropped on November 2, 2011, but the game didn’t come out until September 17, 2013.
But other signs are pointing to a 2024 release date. In May 2023, Rockstar Games’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive Software, released their earnings and estimates. While forecasts for fiscal 2024 (ending March 2024) have sales around $5.5 billion on an adjusted basis, forecasts for fiscal 2025 (starting April 2024) show a big bounce back to $8 billion. Why the big jump? Many see a GTA 6 release as the only thing that could do it.
We’ll see if these forecasts from May hold up when Take-Two announces their most recent earnings today. If we still see a big jump in revenue forecasts for fiscal 2025, that would potentially put the release date for GTA 6 between April 2024 and March 2025. Holiday 2024 would be the easy guess, but GTA is the kind of franchise that doesn’t need the holiday season to help push sales. GTA 3 and 5 were released in September, while GTA 4 was released in April.
A conference call is set for this afternoon at 4:30 pm EST. You can head over to Take-Two’s investor relations page to hear what the execs may say about the next GTA game.