GTA VI: all the news on Rockstar’s next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series

Rockstar’s long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI is launching November 19th, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X consoles. The game will be available digitally at launch, with physical cases containing codes, not discs, so your options for preordering are straightforward. The preloading phase for the game begins on November 12th, which should give you plenty of time to install the game.

There are two versions of the game to choose from, the $79.99 Standard and $99.99 Ultimate editions. Both include the same preorder perks. You’ll get the Vintage Vice City Pack when the game launches. It’s a set of in-game items that includes vehicles, weapon patterns, and hairstyles with nods to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Workers at Grand Theft Auto VI developer Rockstar Games have submitted a request for their union, the IWGB Game Workers Union, to be voluntarily recognized, according to a press release. The request follows Rockstar firing more than 30 staffers last year in a move accused of being “union busting.”

According to the release, IWGB members have been “actively” organizing since 2019 and “claim they now represent a significant proportion of the workforce across each of the studio’s sites in Edinburgh, Dundee, Lincoln, Leeds and London.” As the union has grown, “Rockstar has already made improvements to workers’ conditions including unprecedented average pay rises and financial incentives for crunch for the first time ever.” The union wants to improve pay transparency, strengthen “flexible working arrangements,” and address crunch, which is something Rockstar has come under scrutiny for in the past.

The release of Grand Theft Auto VI is a singular moment, the kind of massive cultural phenomenon that makes people want to go out and buy a console to play it. It is the preeminent modern example of what’s known as a “system seller.” There’s almost certainly a large audience of people who were waiting to buy a console because all they really play on it is GTA, and they haven’t needed to upgrade since GTA V. But there’s one big problem: At the same time people are getting excited to finally play GTA, the hardware it runs on is becoming prohibitively expensive.

Fans have been waiting for the next Grand Theft Auto for a long time. GTA V originally launched in 2013, and it was subsequently ported to multiple generations of consoles, landed on PC, and, with a little help from its enduring online mode, went on to become perhaps the most lucrative single entertainment product in history. That’s a lot to live up to, and the hype around GTA VI is unlike any game I’ve ever seen. The launch, on November 19th for the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S, is expected to be so big that other game publishers are moving out of the way for fear of getting lost in the shuffle.

Rockstar Games has finally given Grand Theft Auto VI a price ahead of the game’s November 19th launch. But while announcing that the game would cost $79.99, Rockstar also confirmed that the physical versions of GTA VI won’t include a disc, and instead will only contain a download code inside the box. Not only is that a disappointing decision for people who like to own physical games, but given the scale of the next GTA, it also sets a bad precedent for the rest of the industry.

It’s no secret that digital games have overtaken physical ones. The sales data proves it: Capcom, for example, recently announced that 93 percent of its games were sold digitally in its last fiscal year, and it expects that number to go up next fiscal year. Devices like the PlayStation Pro, Xbox Series S, and Steam Machine don’t have an included disc drive, further exacerbating the issue.

We finally have a price for Grand Theft Auto VI: $79.99. That gets you the standard edition of the game, while the Ultimate Edition will set you back $99.99.

Preorders start at midnight tonight, local time, when you’ll be able to reserve a copy on PS5 or Xbox Series X/S. You’ll be able to order either digital or physical editions of the game, though Rockstar has confirmed that even the physical editions contain “a download code inside the box.” The upside is that they’ll ship from November 12th, allowing buyers of either edition to preload the game ahead of its full release on November 19th.

Who’s afraid of the next GTA? Based on the last few days of Summer Game Fest, just about everyone. Grand Theft Auto VI hasn’t been present at any of the keynote events, but its presence was felt every time a release date was announced. The month of November, when GTA VI launches, is virtually empty. The rest of the fall, meanwhile, is absolutely packed.

It started at Sony’s State of Play showcase on Tuesday. Even before that show, we knew that Wolverine, the next big PlayStation exclusive, would be launching on September 15th. But now it’s joined by a bunch of major third-party titles: Dune: Awakening (September 22nd), Control Resonant (September 24th), Silent Hill: Townfall (September 24th), Onimusha: Way of the Sword (September 25th), and Ace Combat 8 (October 2nd). This is on top of other games launching before November that had already been announced, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 in October.

Grand Theft Auto VI is being delayed again: it will now launch on November 19th, 2026.

“We are sorry for adding additional time to what we realize has been a long wait, but these extra months will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve,” Rockstar Games says. “We want to thank you again for your patience and support. While the wait is a little longer, we are incredibly excited for players to experience the sprawling state of Leonida and a return to modern day Vice City.”

Rockstar Games, the developer of Grand Theft Auto VI, fired between 30 to 40 employees on Thursday, as previously reported by Bloomberg. According to the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), all of the employees fired were part of a private trade union Discord chat and were either already union members or attempting to organize a union at Rockstar.

“Rockstar has just carried out the most blatant and ruthless act of union busting in the history of the games industry,” IWGB president Alex Marshall said in a statement provided to The Verge.

A second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI had a surprise drop this week, and it looked like it mostly focused on the story and world at the expense of gameplay. However, developer Rockstar Games says that isn’t actually the case, and that the trailer was “comprised of equal parts gameplay and cutscenes.” The fact that it’s hard to discern between the two in the trailer is an impressive achievement for the game, though obviously we’ll have to reserve judgement until we are able to actually play it.

Here, you can judge for yourself:

It’s been quite some time since Rockstar set the internet on fire with the first Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, and then subsequently delayed the game, but now we finally have a second look. The new trailer is — like the first — pretty heavily focused on setting up the characters and world, without much in the way of gameplay (though the developer does call it “the biggest, most immersive evolution of the series yet”).

But we do have a few more details about the story. Here’s the description from Rockstar:

The delay of Grand Theft Auto VI into next year is a big deal. The game is the follow-up to arguably the biggest entertainment release of all time, one that originally debuted well over a decade ago. Even if GTAV is still going strong, now spanning multiple console generations and with a surprisingly enduring online component, the hype for its sequel has been steadily building since 2013. Adding to the sheer amount of time is the mystery — we still know very little about what GTAVI actually is. So it’s a good time to revisit what we do know; namely, the single trailer released in 2023.

Our first glimpse of the game runs almost entirely on vibes. Instead of gameplay or story, it covers a feeling, which is to say the feeling of Florida. GTAVI takes place in Leonida, Rockstar’s take on the Sunshine State, and the trailer is filled with those purple-pink skies, airboats plowing through the everglades, late-night streets races, a whole lot of pool parties, and of course alligators getting into mischief. Much of it is captured on a TikTok-like social network. There’s a slight introduction to the Bonnie and Clyde–style lead characters, including a woman named Lucia and her unnamed counterpart, but it’s not really clear what they’re up to (aside from the obvious crime).

Rockstar Games is delaying the highly anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto VI to May 26th, 2026. The game had originally been planned to release in fall 2025, but Rockstar Games now says the team needs extra time “to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.”

In a message posted on the Rockstar Games website, the development team apologized for the delay:

11 years after its launch, Grand Theft Auto V is still massively popular, becoming the most watched game on Twitch. The streaming platform has shared some of its viewership stats from last year with GTA V capturing over 1 billion hours watched.

Here’s an infographic breaking some of the stats down:

With GTA VI looming over the fall 2025 release schedule, a new report from Digiday claims that Rockstar is going all-in on user-generated content. According to the report, the developer is having discussions with Fortnite, Roblox, and GTA creators about making “custom experiences” inside what’s shaping up to be the biggest gaming release since the last Grand Theft Auto game launched way (way) back in 2013.

That Rockstar has made user-generated content part of its strategy for GTA VI should come as no surprise. Despite the last GTA launching over ten years ago (same with GTA Online), interest in the game has stayed fresh with the help of mods like FiveM that allow users to host and join their own multiplayer servers.

In Take-Two’s Q4 2024 earnings report, the company stated when gamers can expect the next entry in the GTA series. What was previously a nebulous calendar year 2025 for Grand Theft Auto VI is now a more specific but still a bit vague “fall 2025.”

In other GTA-related news, the company reported that GTA V has sold 200 million copies: a staggering feat, making the game the second bestselling title of all time but still 100 million copies short of the number one entry, Minecraft.