Multiple sources suggest that Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently aiming for a release in 2024 or 2025.
IGN reported that GTA 6 was in development last year, but it was in early development. Last week, industry insider Tom Henderson put a 2024 or 2025 release date on the project – a timeline which has subsequently been corroborated by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier and VGC’s Andy Robinson.
Henderson added that the game would take place in a modern take on the series’ Miami-inspired Vice City, and that the game’s map will be altered over time in the same manner as live service games like Fortnite – details VGC also said it had heard. Of course, as with all rumours – particularly those out of early projects – these details should be taken with a grain of salt, and could change over time.
If the game did arrive in 2024, that would create a potential 6 year gap in mainline Rockstar releases, following 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2 (although Red Dead Online was released in 2019). It remains to be seen if Rockstar will have any other new games to fill that gap, but we do know that GTA Online and GTA 5 will be coming as “expanded and enhanced” new-gen console versions on November 11 this year.
Rockstar has also been promising “surprises” related to the 20th anniversary of the release of GTA 3 – including some related to GTA Online. That anniversary arrives on October 22, but Rockstar hasn’t made clear what the anniversary content might be.
Whatever it turns out to be, GTA 6 will be the first in the series’ history as 3D games not to include Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser or GTA’s unseen mastermind Leslie Benzies as part of the development team. Both executives have now seemingly set up new studios, with Houser’s Absurd Ventures in Games appearing last week, and Benzies’ Build a Rocket Boy hard at work on its deeply mysterious debut game, Everywhere.