GTA 6 timeline: every official announcement from 2022 to launch

Rockstar Games communicates rarely and in short bursts. This is the full public record of what the studio and its parent company have actually announced about Grand Theft Auto VI, with the date of each announcement.

February 4, 2022: the game is confirmed to exist

Buried at the bottom of a GTA Online community update, Rockstar wrote that active development on the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series was well underway. The same post announced that GTA V and GTA Online were coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on March 15, 2022.¹

November 8, 2023: a trailer is promised

Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser signed a short note marking the studio's 25th anniversary and confirming that the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto would arrive in early December.²

December 5, 2023: Trailer 1 and the state of Leonida

Trailer 1 landed with the game's setting attached: the state of Leonida, home to Vice City and the areas around it, described by Rockstar as the biggest and most immersive evolution of the series. The window given was 2025, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.³

May 2, 2025: the first delay

Rockstar moved the game to May 26, 2026, in a letter that apologised for the wait and said the studio needed the extra time to deliver the quality players expect.⁴

May 6, 2025: Trailer 2 and the premise

Four days after the delay, Trailer 2 gave the story its shape: Jason and Lucia, an easy score that goes wrong, and a criminal conspiracy stretching across Leonida. Take-Two's accompanying press release confirmed all trailer footage was captured on PlayStation 5.⁵

November 6, 2025: the second delay

The date moved again, to November 19, 2026. Rockstar apologised a second time and pointed to polish as the reason.⁶

June 18 and 24, 2026: pre-orders

Rockstar first announced that pre-orders would open on June 25 and pointed players to the PlayStation and Microsoft wishlists. Six days later it published the details: the Ultimate Edition, the Vintage Vice City Pack for every pre-order and purchase before November 20, pre-loading from November 12, and the line that the game is a single-player experience.⁷⁸

August 6 and 27, 2026: the Extended Look

Rockstar announced that Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look would premiere on Netflix on August 27 at 3 p.m. ET, then reach the official YouTube channel and the GTA VI site at 9 p.m. ET the same day. The follow-up post confirmed the whole thing was captured from in-game footage on PlayStation 5.⁹¹⁰

What is missing from this timeline

Notice how little of it is gameplay. Between February 2022 and August 2026, Rockstar published two trailers, two delay letters, two pre-order posts and a set of character and location pages. It did not run a press tour, appear at a games showcase, or release a gameplay demo until the Extended Look, twelve weeks before launch. That restraint is itself the pattern.³⁵⁹

It also means most of what circulated in those years was not from Rockstar. In September 2022 the studio confirmed it had suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information, including early development video for the next Grand Theft Auto. None of that material belongs on this timeline: Rockstar never published it, and it does not represent the shipping game.¹¹

Where the next entries will appear

Every dated item above came from one of three places: the Rockstar Newswire, Take-Two's investor relations releases, or Rockstar's own product and support pages. Nothing on this list was first reported by a leaker and later confirmed. If you want to follow the remaining announcements before November 19, those three sources are the entire feed.⁷⁸¹⁰

What happened to the 2022 leaker, since people still ask

The September 2022 intrusion was traced to Arion Kurtaj, a British teenager and member of the hacking group Lapsus$, who accessed Rockstar's systems using an Amazon Fire TV Stick, a hotel television and a mobile phone while out on bail with his laptop confiscated. A jury found him responsible for the breach in August 2023, and on December 21, 2023 a UK court sentenced him to an indefinite stay in a secure hospital, with a judge citing a high risk of serious harm through his skill at gaining unauthorised computer access. That sentencing closed the legal chapter on the leak, but it does not change what belongs on this timeline: none of the leaked material was ever an announcement, and it is not treated as canon here.¹²

A dated recap of the full record

• Feb 4, 2022: Rockstar confirms active development on the next Grand Theft Auto¹
• Sep 18, 2022: An unauthorised intrusion leads to leaked development footage; not an announcement¹¹
• Nov 8, 2023: Sam Houser promises a trailer for early December²
• Dec 5, 2023: Trailer 1 reveals Leonida and Vice City, 2025 window³
• May 2, 2025: First delay, to May 26, 2026⁴
• May 6, 2025: Trailer 2 reveals Jason, Lucia and the premise⁵
• Nov 6, 2025: Second delay, to November 19, 2026⁶
• Jun 18 and 24, 2026: Pre-order details, including price and bonuses⁷⁸
• Aug 6 and 27, 2026: An Extended Look announced, then premieres on Netflix⁹¹⁰

What history suggests about the announcement rhythm

Speculation, not confirmation: Rockstar followed almost the same shape with Grand Theft Auto V, giving a season first (Spring 2013, announced October 30, 2012) and then a specific day about three months later. With Grand Theft Auto VI, the gap between confirmation and a first trailer was about 21 months, and the gap between a first trailer and a specific release day was roughly 23 months across two delay letters. Both games followed a pattern of season first, specific day later, though GTA VI took considerably longer to complete that sequence than GTA V did.¹³³

Practical checklist for tracking future announcements

• Follow the Rockstar Newswire and Take-Two's investor relations news page directly, not aggregator summaries
• Treat anything dated before February 2022 as pre-confirmation speculation
• Do not treat the 2022 leaked footage as representative of the shipping game, regardless of how it is captioned elsewhere
• Expect the next official post to be launch-week logistics, based on the cadence since November 2025