Overview Grand Theft Auto VI follows the criminal escapades of Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, a romantic couple living in modern day Vice City.
Development and Marketing Pre-development for GTA VI began in 2018, with full development starting in 2020. On February 4, 2022, Rockstar Games officially confirmed that development on the next Grand Theft Auto game was "well underway".
Development Footage Leak On September 18, 2022 an account under the name "teapotuberhacker" posted a thread on GTAForums of 90 video files that contained leaked development footage stolen from Rockstar Games. The next day, Rockstar released an apologetic statement on X confirming that the leak was real. The user was later identified as Arion Kurtaj, the founder of the hacker group Lapsus$. On December 21, 2023, due to autism and and a willingness to continue hacking, he was convicted and sentenced to an indefinite stay at a secure psychiatric facility.
Reveal Ten years after the release of Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Games announced on November 8, 2023, that the first trailer for "the next Grand Theft Auto" would released in early December. On December 1, 2023, Rockstar Games announced that "Trailer 1" would be released on December 5, 2023 at 9AM EST. On the evening of December 4, 2023, the trailer was leaked but in very low quality. At that point, Rockstar Games chose to release the trailer early on their YouTube channel.
Most Anticipated Game On November 21, 2024, GTA VI won the Golden Joystick award for 'most wanted game.' On December 12, 2024 it also won the Game Award for 'most anticipated game'.
Delay, Trailer 2 & Website Update After 515 days of silence, on May 2, 2025, Rockstar announced the delay form the game's original 2025 release window, to May 26, 2026. 4 days later on May 6, 2025, without warning, Rockstar released trailer 2, along with a sizeable update to the game's official site. Which included multiple character bios, map details, artwork and over 70 screenshots.
