Even though we still haven't seen a gameplay trailer, Grand Theft Auto 6's pre-release sales have been "unprecedented," according to publisher Take-Two. So why doesn't the public company just tell us specifically how many GTA 6 preorders it's sold?

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier recently posed that question to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who said that the volume of GTA 6 preorders is so unprecedented that they "can't tell whether they mean anything."

Specifically, Take-Two is unsure whether the preorder count can be used to accurately estimate GTA 6's total launch sales based on established wisdom, or if it's such an outlier that established wisdom doesn't apply, and people who'd normally wait to buy the game after launch are opting to preorder.

"The massive demand for preorders we've seen to date could reflect a pull forward of sales that otherwise would materialize in the fullness of time," Zelnick said.

Because they "simply don't know the demand curve because it's just never happened before," the CEO says that "the raw numbers could potentially be misleading," and as such Take-Two is keeping them to itself for now. (Though it is clearly happy to indicate that GTA 6 is already an extraordinary success.)

The next big moment for GTA 6 is a proper gameplay reveal, which will debut exclusively on Netflix on August 27, and then on Rockstar's public YouTube channel six hours later.

Regarding that controversial deal (I don't think it shows much respect for GTA fans myself), Zelnick told Bloomberg only that "there's reasoning" behind it and we'll "understand more" once we watch it.

All this talk of GTA 6 preorders is purely academic for the PC-only crowd, as there's still no PC release date for the game. The console-only launch is frustrating for PC gamers however you slice it, but it's made extra irritating by today's inflated console prices: The PlayStation 5 Pro currently goes for $900.

Grand Theft Auto 6's potential price-point was a thing of much consternation in the lead-up to its reveal. Months of rumours—and even the Bank of America getting involved in the discourse, because why not—led to the question: Are they really gonna charge $100 for this thing?

You're reading this article because they didn't, but you're also reading this article because they sort of did. See, GTA 6 has both an $80 version and a $100 version, the latter of which hides some potentially major parts of its identity behind the upgrade, including a handful of stores that may very well remind you that you've not shelled out every time you go near them.

There's this itchy capitalist feeling that Rockstar probably did actually want to charge a hundo for the thing, but didn't, because that'd have gamers up in arms—as it turns out, that might've been the smart play. In a recent interview with CNBC, Take-Two interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says:

"It's skewing more to the premium edition, but that might be a reflection of the fact that the most avid consumers are the ones that are pre-ordering now," Zelnick says, before adding that they're unlikely to lower the game's price point themselves, even if retailers might want to reduce their own margin to draw in customers:

"We preserved our pricing on Grand Theft Auto 5 for a very long time—much longer than a standard release of an entertainment property."

Now sure—as Zelnick says, this is a case of sample size. I'd be very surprised if, writ large, most people had $100 in their pocket to shell out for a video game, even one as glitzy and prestigious as GTA 6. I reckon he's on the money (pun intended) about more excited gamers being more likely to both pre-order and spend the extra dough.

But it very much feels like GTA 6 is, in combination with the content locked off behind that paywall, basically $100. And if what Zelnick says is true—that those sales are split down the middle with a lean towards $100—then Take-Two has effectively gotten away with charging $90 for the game's pre-order when every last bead on the abacus is set into place.

And man, my feelings are mixed. Yes, $100 is a lot of money to spend on an entertainment product in the, uh, interesting financial times we live in. But there is the elephant in the room that the production of big-budget games like GTA 6 has absolutely outstripped inflation. Would I pay $100 for a videogame? No, even on principle. But given it took literal, actual billions to make, $100 is technically low-balling it.

You have to wonder if GTA 6 might even be part of an endangered species, now. Sure, we'll get other Grand Theft Auto games assuming we're all still around in 10+ years, but can an industry that's so hungry to chase quarterly results at the exchange of all else sustain anything else of that game's scale and budget? Probably not, but hey—maybe things'll get healthier and less layoff-happy in a decade. One can hope.

You won't win any prizes for guessing that Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold well since its initial 2013 release, several lifetimes ago, but on a recent Take-Two earnings call, CEO Strauss Zelnick revealed the up-to-date, astronomical figure: 230 million copies.

"The Grand Theft Auto series once again exceeded expectations, and to date, Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold over 230 million units worldwide," Zelnick told investors on the August 7 call. "Recurrent consumer spending for the series grew 3% and GTA Plus continues to thrive. All led by a series of content offerings, including the addition of the Rockstar Mission Creator, an all-new suite of innovative and in-depth tools, empowering the player community to bring missions to life.

"Global excitement for the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 continues to build, with the title having an exceptional start to pre-orders. With Rockstar Games' recent announcement of Grand Theft Auto 6 and extended look on August 27, we believe the consumers' passion and anticipation for the next evolution of this iconic series will grow further, leading up to the title's November 19 release."

230 million is obviously a lot of copies, but it has a vague "number big" quality without added context. I'll endeavor to provide some in the form of funny statistics and back of the napkin math to drive it home:

• That's over 10 times the estimated lifetime sales of Baldur's Gate 3 (20 million), and 5 times that of Cyberpunk 2077 (40 million).
• GTA5 has sold an average of 17.7 million copies per year, a number uncomfortably close to the 25 million lifetime sales achieved by the bottom entries of Wikipedia's list of the top 50 best-selling games of all time (GTA 5 is third on that list).
• Breaking that down further, GTA 5's average sales of 1.5 million copies per month as a lifetime figure would make for a double-A development success story or indie royalty.
• It's about two thirds the population of the United States, and almost four times that of the United Kingdom.
• Still nowhere near Tetris (estimated 520 million) or Minecraft (est. 400 million).

Number indeed big. It gives you a sense of just what Take-Two is hoping to accomplish with GTA 6 and its estimated multi-billion dollar development budget. Rockstar's upcoming game is an entertainment juggernaut that has every other developer reassessing their fall release schedule, but it also has massive shoes to fill as far as the hungry hungry shareholders are concerned.

It's well-known that the PC ports of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas were a shemozzle, thanks in part to re-used code across the trio of games, but also a general lack of care that used to be the norm when it came to PC ports. The excellent SilentPatch has long been the solution, and it's now even better thanks to a significant update that not only fixes leftover bugs, but also restores cut content that was inaccessible thanks to typos in the code.

One big change you'll notice with this version of the patch is that 100 voice lines have been restored to GTA San Andreas. Some of these were only bugged in a specific circumstance—like the lines CJ says when shooting at people, which only worked if you played with a controller. Those lines will now trigger when you pull the trigger when aiming with mouse and keyboard.

A lot of other dialogue that would otherwise never be heard has been restored too. Pedestrians will now have conversations about the weather, criminals have lines specifically for running away, CJ has unique lines for taking over specific neighborhoods and more lines when interacting with sex workers, there are more gang taunts, cops now announce when they have you surrounded or need covering fire, there's a grunt specific to being sprayed with paint, and more shopkeepers have lines for when they're being held up. According to the patch notes, "Most notably, the Ammu-Nation vendor had over fifteen voice lines for this event, all previously unused!"

That's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to improvements across all three games. Lens flares and heat haze now scale with resolution, NPCs can use sniper rifles and RPGs properly, cops no longer shoot gangsta-style, birds spawn correctly, roadblocks face the right way, and you can put a boat in your garage without crashing the game.

Extremely specific bugs, like the one that turned the sky over San Andreas red at 8 pm if it was raining, have finally been squashed, as well as the one that caused an explosion in Fort Carson by incorrectly spawning a plane in someone's driveway. GTA 3's street gangsters now walk in formation instead of meandering around and then freezing, fixing a problem that affected even the PS2 version.

The list goes on. SilentPatch was already essential to fix more blatant issues like broken mouselook, but now it's even better. If you're in the mood for a replay, here are the setup instructions for all three games.

Let's be real, come August 27, the Grand Theft Auto 6 "extended look" is not going to be exclusive to Netflix for six hours as advertised. It's going to be exclusive to Netflix for however long it takes for someone to record it and distribute a torrent.

You wouldn't download a car, but would you download an ad for a game about stealing cars?

It would be, I've now had to consider, technically piracy to do so. After all, Netflix probably paid good money for the privilege of being the first to show the world GTA 6 gameplay, although we can only guess, because the financial terms of the deal haven't been disclosed.

Aside from whatever funds exchanged hands, GTA publisher Take-Two's motivation for the deal is to signal that GTA 6 is a cultural event that transcends the gaming scene. And Netflix gets to be associated with that cultural event.

I get Netflix's angle. I don't get Take-Two's, unless the payday was astronomical. Everyone already knows GTA is a big deal, and it's plain disrespectful to GTA fans to turn the gameplay trailer they've been waiting for into a money-making opportunity, especially given that many of them have already pre-ordered the game.

Having to wait six hours to watch a trailer is a relatively minor inconvenience, all things considered, but monetizing a trailer is just tacky. It certainly doesn't reinforce Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's claim that GTA 6 is an "incredible bargain" at $80-$100. It suggests, instead, that we should brace for maximum nickel-and-diming and FOMO exploitation.

I suppose this is how it goes when you don't have to worry about your reputation. There's not much Take-Two and Rockstar could do to hurt GTA 6's sales at this point: They've already sold a zillion pre-orders (or something like that) without any gameplay trailer at all. If there is a line that can't be crossed, it's a couple celestial bodies removed from a tacky gameplay reveal or a new labor scandal.

When the GTA 6 extended look debuts on Netflix on August 27, we'll watch it and report on its contents here, but I imagine a quick scan of social media will allow you to illicitly experience the marketing beat early, if you're the sort of outlaw who dares to watch pirated videogame trailers.

During Take-Two's latest earnings call, CEO Strauss Zelnick said the current computing hardware crisis—you know, the one that's making it more economical to fly roundtrip from the UK to buy an MSRP GPU at Nvidia's QuakeCon booth than it is to buy one anywhere online—is, to quote the man directly, "not a good thing."

But while the skyrocketing costs of consoles and components are threatening to price customers out of the pastime, Zelnick said Take-Two doesn't see increasingly inaccessible gaming hardware as an insurmountable problem. In part, that's because Rockstar's parent company expects a lot more of us will be streaming games in the near future.

The "advent of streaming," Zelnick said, is something that Take-Two believes is "right around the corner, in terms of having something that's low latency and really works well for consumers. Machines that weren't game machines before will become game machines."

As a result, the company imagines its customer base will continue to grow as cloud gaming becomes standardized, regardless of what happens to the traditional gaming hardware market.

That's "if you believe in streaming," Zelnick said, "and to be clear, we really do. And I'm happy to put a timeline on it. I think we'll be in commercial streaming mode within three years."

By Zelnick's estimate, broader adoption of cloud gaming could effectively increase Take-Two's potential user base tenfold. That wouldn't necessarily produce a tenfold increase in revenue, he said, as the company's most "avid" customers are those who already have traditional gaming hardware. But game streaming "creates great opportunity for titles that are broadly desirable, even outside of core markets."

Some amount of Zelnick's vision of a glorious and lucrative game streaming future is believable: It's easy to imagine that there's a number of people out there who might, for instance, be interested in playing Take-Two games like GTA 6 even if they aren't otherwise compelled to invest in a gaming setup—especially as the cost of building one continues to rise.

But for streaming to become a more common standard in gaming, it'll need to overcome profound—and intensifying—anxieties about game and media ownership. From the Stop Killing Games effort to the outcry provoked by Sony's announcing an end of disc production, there's a justifiable unease among consumers about being left with no way to access games outside of streaming and subscription services that can be shuttered as soon as they stop generating the requisite revenue figures.

Even Hideo Kojima's in his feelings about it, recently sharing his fears that "we will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved." While Zelnick was bullish about digital media distribution elsewhere in this week's earnings call, it's worth noting that he previously went on record in 2020 as being "highly skeptical that subscriptions will be the only way or primary way that interactive entertainment is distributed."

In time, however, we might validate the prediction of Ubisoft director of subscriptions Philippe Tremblay, who said in 2024 that gamers would get "comfortable with not owning your game." If the hardware cost crisis continues to worsen, we might not have a choice.

After years of speculation, after reams of fan theories and screenshot analysis, we'll be finally getting a full look at Grand Theft Auto 6 on… hold on, Netflix? Really? Right, okay, sure.

This news comes courtesy of the site itself, which has a preview page that reads: "Coming August 27: See an extended look at Grand Theft Auto 6, the next evolution in the groundbreaking Grand Theft Auto series." It's given the tags of "crime films" and "action adventure films". Which is technically true for a documentary about Grand Theft Auto 6, I guess—but very much not true of the game itself. Because it's a videogame, and not a film.

The first look will nonetheless be debuting, as mentioned above, on August 27 at 3 pm EST/8 pm BST. It'll also be coming to YouTube, but six hours later, meaning Netflix has swung a six-hour exclusivity deal with Rockstar for the purposes of, I assume, getting people to pay for Netflix subscriptions.

And hey, from a business perspective? Bully for Netflix, good for them! This is sure to get at least a little pocket change in the coffers of a subscription service that's grown a little less popular thanks to all the advertisements and, er, AI advertisements.

These kinds of deals will almost certainly work slightly better than Netflix's other attempts to get a slice of the videogame pie, given it took one of its games down after just half a year and closed its AAA development studio in 2024 in order to make AI games with a new head of operations, who, er, exited around four months later.

Basically, offering exclusive streaming options to key-jangle people into paying for a month of Netflix subscription seems like an altogether more sensible proposition than an Amazon-esque hubris, believing you can do videogames just because you do movies and TV good and have a lot of money to throw around.

And, hey—if you're excited about GTA 6, you'll finally get to see it! Yipee! You just might have to take a six-hour nap unless you've got a few bucks in your pocket, or if you happen to already have an active subscription going.

It feels like western blockbuster games development is dying. Amid endless rounds of ruthless layoffs and studio closures, a component shortage crisis driving up hardware prices for both PC and console users, and the industry's often-disastrous pivot to live service, it's hard to imagine a healthy future for the kinds of lavish, seasonal tentpole releases that used to be the bread and butter of the medium.

I know western studios still release these things. In 2025 we had Assassin's Creed Shadows, Doom: The Dark Ages and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 to name a few. This year: Forza Horizon 6, a forthcoming Wolverine game, and 007 First Light.

But none of those 2025 games had the cultural impact of a Silksong, Arc Raiders or Clair Obscur, nor were they as sticky as Nintendo, Capcom or Konami's blockbuster output. It's roughly the same narrative this year so far: Forza Horizon 6 was fine, but Korea-made Crimson Desert was a viral sensation. Many, many more people read about Subnautica 2 on PC Gamer than they did 007: First Light.

When they actually get made and not unceremoniously canceled, blockbusters with luxurious seven figure budgets and inescapable marketing just don't have the clout they used to. But there's one massive exception looming on the horizon.

For Real

GTA 6 really feels like the last of the dinosaurs. For one, a big part of the conversation will focus on its envelope-pushing graphics, which feels like an increasingly irrelevant point of discussion in 2026.

The drive towards ever-increasing graphical fidelity has been inseparable from this medium since its birth. It's why we have Doom, Tomb Raider, Crysis, Oblivion and Cyberpunk 2077. It's why we have console generations and dedicated GPUs. It's probably why there hasn't been a new The Elder Scrolls game since 2011.

"Immersion" is near universally valued as the goal in blockbuster development. The word's ubiquity goes hand-in-hand with the medium's obsession with graphical fidelity, which overwhelmingly manifests as realism. After all, what could be more immersive than a videogame that looks like the actual world?

The more realistic a game's shimmering isle or wartorn city, the better. In western blockbuster development, realism has disproportionately ruled the roost compared to, say, the cel-shaded Borderlands look, or that one weird anime Need for Speed game (remember what EA and Insomniac did to Fuse?). Even fifth and sixth gen mascot platformers were marketed for the realism of their newly impressive 3D spaces.

But I don't think the majority of people playing games care about graphical fidelity and its attendant "realism" anymore. Games like Palworld, Peak, Phasmophobia and Valheim make bigger cultural splashes than IO's new Bond game did. Crucially, they all look different. The way they look translates as a sensibility or a purposeful style. But when the rotely realistic-looking Bond game did go moronically viral, it was because the graphics, which strove for realism, weren't realistic enough.

If you were born the year Crysis released, you're 19 now. If you were born the year Skyrim released, you're 15. Graphics have definitely "improved" since then, but nowhere near to the extent they did between, say, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. It's not even close. And yet, it's these iterative nudgings towards greater immersion that defined big splashy games and the marketing of them for decades.

Remember when Spider-Man 2 went viral because the puddles got nerfed? That's the parodic end result of the industry's focus on realism as a measure of its progress. Meanwhile, my tween daughter rotates between Minecraft, Stardew Valley and Hades 2. Some of her contemporaries subsist entirely on Roblox brainrot.

The big exception to this generational shrugging off of fidelity is GTA 6. It'll likely be the best looking "realistic" videogame ever made, but it won't be because of its underlying computer technology. Its unprecedented realism will be mostly attributable to Rockstar's budget. Rockstar—which has reportedly spent well into the billions on GTA 6—can afford to employ a team of people dedicated to making dog fur look uncannily lifelike, or body sweat drip and roll in a very true-to-life way. It's not mere technology that gets us here: it's the result of Rockstar being wealthy enough to pay people to do it.

Advances in realism can no longer come from John Carmack sitting alone in a room making true colored lighting from scratch. It comes from massive teams of specifically-qualified people working on all those finer details most players won't notice. Most studios, even big ones, can't afford to make every building in an open world city look different. The people in these massive teams all command a wage, and there's a limit to what most studios can pay. Rockstar has as close to "no limit" as the industry gets.

That's ultimately what the graphical arms race is in 2026 and beyond: whoever has the most money and the strongest will to spend it wins. And no other studio is even close to rivalling Rockstar in these stakes.

Graphics Accelerator

What happens to the big western blockbuster after GTA 6? I don't think GTA 6 will kill it, but it'll maybe have a Baldur's Gate 3 effect. Developer Xalavier Nelson Jr. presciently warned about this phenomenon in the lead up to the RPG's 1.0 release. To expect that "every RPG should be like [Baldur's Gate 3] going forward" would be to create "the expectations and conditions to ensure your favorite creators may never be able to give you the thing you love ever again."

Which is true, but it's also been an unfortunate reality in game development for as long as I remember. Many are the hairy tales of studios pivoting to newer, less-familiar engines in their attempts to keep up with the graphical joneses. If a game looks bleeding edge it (partially) markets itself.

There is an important difference: Baldur's Gate 3 is famous for its systemic complexity and mind-melting player agency. It lets you do things you've always dreamed of doing in RPGs, which even fractionally smaller RPG studios may struggle to emulate. Singleplayer GTA games, on the other hand, are best known for their edginess, their immersive, simulated cities, and their immersive, realistic graphics.

GTA 5 wasn't dramatically more sophisticated than GTA 4. It didn't change the way people make or play open world city action games. Having three protagonists was neat, but it didn't enforce any new norm on the medium. But one thing's undeniable: it looked amazing. It was more realistic and detailed than any game that came before it. That's what counts in Rockstar's world.

So it's possible that competing western triple-A studios will never be able to make a good looking videogame ever again. Maybe GTA 6 will emphatically murder the arms race that has been petering out for years.

But it's also possible that GTA 6's graphics—and take a deep breath, because I'm about to say something pessimistic about GTA 6 —won't hit with the impact that has historically buoyed the series because, ultimately, who cares about realistic graphics in 2026? How much better can they realistically be on six year old hardware? And won't it still ultimately be an open world shooting and driving game with some lavish narrative accoutrements? (Perhaps it'll be much more than that, but it'd be bucking against tradition.)

Nearly everyone with a console will buy GTA 6 when it releases in November. Many PC gamers will buy a console to play it. It's going to be absolutely huge and it'll dominate the conversation for months. But here's what I think happens afterwards: western studios, the ones still operating healthily, will go on developing their games within their comparatively limited scopes. Outlier philistines will gripe online that they don't look as good as GTA 6, but most people won't care.

Then, two or three months later, until the next GTA Online comes out, GTA 6 will be forgotten, its existence taken for granted.

It'll still be a watershed moment for the medium. I think it'll be the last videogame that can market itself on the strength of its exorbitant graphical detail. It'll be the full stop in that fun but ultimately kinda destructive continuum. As a former Sony Santa Monica exec told me last year, the timeworn blockbuster model is not sustainable.

For those who insist on following that route, they'll need to do so keeping in mind that fewer people will have access to high end hardware because everything is now stupidly expensive and getting worse. As a result, what constitutes the "mass market" in games will shift dramatically. In a worse case scenario our descendants will binge on low-rent UGC. More optimistically, the medium will continue to grow and flourish without the pixel counters breathing down its neck: if that happens, games will be allowed to become more complex in more interesting ways.

Take-Two Interactive, publisher of Grand Theft Auto 6, will hold its Q1 FY2027 results call on Friday, August 7, and I don't mean to sound alarmist or over-excited but I think something might be happening. Allow me to explain.

Part of my job involves listening in to quarterly investor calls, in case anything interesting is revealed about current or upcoming projects—you never know when a CEO is going to accidentally leak a release target or confirm The Witcher 4. So naturally, it behooves me to know when these calls are happening.

US-based publishers generally hold their calls late in the afternoon in the Eastern time zone, typically 4 or 4:30 pm, and Take-Two is no exception: Results drop at 4, get on the phone at 4:30, and that's your day done. But this upcoming investors call is scheduled for 8 am ET—that's 8.5 hours earlier this T2's usual call time.

The obvious question is, why? Take-Two head of global corporate communications Alan Lewis tells me it's "just scheduling." It may well be "just scheduling," but with the biggest videogame in years now just a few months away from its scheduled release—Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch, for consoles, on November 19—oddities like this naturally draw extra scrutiny.

Of course, if there is a big secret GTA 6 announcement inbound, Take-Two wouldn't tell me about it, but I persevere nonetheless. So in the event that we are in for GTA news, I see two possibilities.

One, a delay: GTA 6 marketing was meant to kick into gear this summer, but here we are in August—just three months from launch—and we've had nary a peep. Weird, right? This week's investors call is the last with any meaningful space between it and GTA 6 day, so if Take-Two is hitting the brakes and wants to mollify investors with an urgency, this is the time to do it.

Possibility two: Early August is mid-summer, which means we're still well within that promised marketing window. Rolling into an investors call with the biggest game trailer to come along in years would be a baller move, and set the company up to absolutely bulldoze the holiday quarter. Which it's going to do anyway, assuming taht first possibility isn't correct, but sometimes it's fun to let 'em know you're coming.

Neither of those theories explain why Take-Two is holding its investors call at 8 am, but consider this: I dug through T2's quarterly earnings calendar all the way back to the start of 2020, and do you know how often it's held investor calls on a Friday? Never! So there you go, right?

For the record, I think a Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer drop is far more likely than a delay, but a last-minute postponement doesn't strike me as beyond the realm of possibility either. Yes, there's also the chance that this is indeed "just scheduling," I suppose, but that's not very exciting—nor does it answer the underlying question of why?

Whatever the reason, we'll be watching, and we'll let you know what happens when—if—it happens.

Every few years or so I find myself idly wondering whatever happened to Midnight Club, Rockstar's arcade street racing series. I quite liked Midnight Club 2 back in the day, although I fell away from the series after that because, in fine Rockstar fashion, subsequent games weren't released on PC. The series as a whole ground to a halt in 2008 with Midnight Club: Los Angeles—despite going over well with critics, the series was never heard from again.

In a new interview with Kiwi Talkz on Insider Gaming, former Rockstar designer Kris Roberts, who worked on multiple Midnight Club games and Red Dead Redemption before leaving in 2010, said there were a few factors involved in the decision to kill the series, including missed deadlines and "non-trivial conflict" between Rockstar New York and the San Diego studio where Midnight Club was developed, but the obvious elephant in the room was Grand Theft Auto.

"The perception was we never got the accolades or the reception," Roberts said. "The New York perspective was, 'You’re not GTA.' When you’re the red-headed stepchild project—you know, we’re doing a good job, we’re world-class, but we’re still treated less than. It was challenging."

Roberts said the San Diego studio was working on a new Midnight Club when he departed, but it was subsequently cancelled: "It was pretty clear that there would be no more Midnight Club and everything was going to be GTA and stuff moving forward, and that’s just the way it was going to be."

Which sucks, because Midnight Club was pretty great (apart from the whole console-exclusivity thing), but also isn't at all hard to believe. Midnight Club: LA arrived in 2008, the same year Grand Theft Auto 4 came out, and if there was any doubt prior to that about where Rockstar's future lay, GTA 4 ended it.

The ending of Midnight Club also fits with the broader approach of Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive, which makes no bones about only being interested in major hits: When the company unloaded Private Division in 2024, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said, "Our job really is to focus on making the biggest and best hits in the marketplace. We're not the long tail company. We are top-ten hit makers around here." In an environment like that, being "good" often just isn't going to be good enough.

Australian GTA Online players are reporting they've been blocked from in-game gambling features, meaning they can no longer play blackjack, roulette or three card poker in the Diamond Casino, among other mini-games. Users attempting to access these mini-games are now hit with a "this feature is not available for you" notification.

Following widespread reports of the ban, GTA Online dataminer Tex2 unearthed the applicable code, clearly showing a territory-based restriction on Casino House, Three Card Poker, Inside Track, Lucky Wheel, Blackjack, Roulette and Slots.

In Australia, games with simulated gambling need to carry an R18+ classification, which GTA Online has always done. In GTA Online, players have to purchase Casino Chips with GTA$, which can be earned in-game or via the purchase of Shark Cash Cards with real money. Money won in the Diamond Casino cannot be converted back into real money—in other words, you cannot gamble for big real world wins in GTA Online, at least not legally and within the bounds of Rockstar's terms of service—though it's possible to use real money on the simulated gambling.

In other words, as distasteful as it may be to some, GTA Online's in-game gambling is technically legal in Australia. That said, the block on in-game gambling does arrive at a time when the Australian federal government is clamping down on online gambling harms. There's every chance this is a preemptive measure.

There's also another factor: As one user in the GTA Forums notes, GTA Online was re-classified for Xbox on July 22 using the automated IARC rating system. The new consumer advice doesn't include "high impact gambling", which it would need to if the Diamond Casino features were available.

I've reached out to Rockstar for a statement on the ban.

If the ban proves permanent, Australia will join a pretty sizeable list of countries where GTA Online's simulated gambling isn't available, including South Africa, Poland, China, Argentina and more. It also looks pretty likely that if GTA 6's eventual online component has simulated gambling, Australia won't get to access it.

We're still in the dark with regards to a GTA 6 PC release date, but the neon-filtered pre-order screen for Rockstar's next blockbuster on my PS5 looks too good to be true. I've racked up thousands of hours in GTA Online on PC over the last decade, but in the space between its arrival on desktop in 2015 and its launch on the PlayStation 3 two years prior (a statement that now reads like a typo), I must have clocked hours into the hundreds.

As detailed by PC Gamer's own Rory Norris last month, developer Rockstar insists at this late stage on describing GTA 6 as a "single-player experience"—but there's simply no way an evolution of the game's multiplayer offshoot isn't in the immediate offing, right?

Whatever form that takes, I fully expect to once more use its console iteration as a test bed for my inevitable platform switch when the time comes. But the overarching question at this point is: what guise will GTA Online 2.0 take upon arrival? And, perhaps more to the point, what do we even want that to look like?

Clear as mud

Without sounding too much like an old bastard, I suspect age will play an integral role here. I was 27 when GTA Online landed in late 2013, and I first migrated to Los Santos from the boundless plains of Minecraft. Now 40 years old, my desire to build and refine my own worlds has waned quite significantly, therefore I view Project Rome—the codename widely associated with Rockstar's reported push towards user-generated content and tools for the next era of GTA Online—through a lens of relative indifference.

I still think UGC is very cool—watching my kids grow and raze their own creations in Minecraft, Fortnite and Roblox is a joy; as is engaging with other people's projects in games like Dreams. But, and I can only speak for myself here, I no longer believe I'm the primary target demographic for out-of-the-box creator-led experiences.

Which is, of course, totally fine. I'll still enjoy this parallel of GTA Online Part Two in the same way I thrive in Grand Theft Auto 5's roleplaying scene, despite having not once built an asset or script of my own in these spaces. Rockstar's acquisition of Cfx.re, coupled with the omnipresent Project Rome chatter in forums, suggests the studio is thinking beyond the traditional single/multiplayer split towards something much broader in Vice City, and the enduring success and appeal of FiveM has shown that millions of players are happy to spend countless hours in Los Santos without ever touching Rockstar's intended gameplay loop.

GTA 6 will never be, say, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but GTA Online 2.0 will almost certainly need to evolve in order to meet the expectations of modern players—not just in terms of what other games are doing right now, but also by virtue of GTA Online's growth beyond recognition over the last 13 years.

To the latter end, GTA Online remains the same high-stakes murder playground it has always been, but over time it has also inadvertently become, quite simply, a cool place to hang out. From its machinima scene to its stunting community, its Dr Dre update to its After Hours nightclub circuit, its nefarious business activities to its still booming roleplay spectrum and its many, many more subcultural identities, GTA Online has become as much of a platform as it has a tangent of a popular single-player video game.

I suspect that distinction is an important one as we enter the next chapter, but in any event, given that Rockstar has barely shown us what GTA 6 looks like in motion⁠—far less anything on the nuts and bolts of Online 2.0⁠—I cannot help but wonder. Can Rockstar support creativity without breaking the essence of what has allowed Grand Theft Auto to endure for the last 30 years?

More questions than answers

With a more user-generated focus comes a series of questions. Who in GTA Online 2.0 moderates that content? Who profits? Who owns maps? Can creators monetise? Do servers stay independent? How much freedom is too much? What about GTA Online as it applies to GTA 5? Will there be a tangible link between the two worlds? Or will Rockstar put the original GTA:O out to pasture, similar to Blizzard's handling of Overwatch 2 and its forerunner? Answers on the back of a faux Miami postcard, I guess.

What may be more important here isn't how Rockstar views GTA Online 2.0, but how it views itself on the cusp of a new and almost certainly redefining era. If GTA Online as it exists today has become a platform, then it's very possible Rockstar sees itself through a similar lens. Epic has Unreal Engine, for example; it has Fortnite and it has the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN).

Roblox, on the other hand, has Roblox Studio. Valve has Workshop. Build a Rocket Boy, despite Mindseye's well-documented troubles, still has big plans for Everywhere as a UGC-driven prospect. And Rockstar between times has purchased FiveM.

Should GTA Online 2.0 in turn become more like Fornite, then? Should it introduce a formalised creator economy and revenue sharing, a Discover tab that helps surface community creations, branded collaborations, and live events? I don't know, is the short answer. I've long felt a large-scale Grand Theft Auto-flavoured Coachella-style endeavour would be fantastic—akin to Fortnite's Travis Scott event of 2020—especially given the fact Rockstar has a host of world-class DJs at its disposal by way of its Circo Loco Record imprint.

Heists on a far grander scale would be much-welcomed too, continuing the steady evolution of the series-signature set-piece from GTA 4 through 5 and now 6, incorporating more players by way of bigger servers. And then some degree of seamless roleplay integration is something I'm certain would absolutely fly on PC, standing on the am-dram shoulders of everything that's come before in Los Santos and Blaine County.

These are but a few things I personally would love to see, but with so much of the basics still unknown, it is, unfortunately, impossible to think too hard on big picture stuff. The next iteration of GTA Online enters a very different world from its predecessor, and with so many well-established live-service platforms already in operation, Rockstar finds itself in relatively unfamiliar territory and under a degree of unfamiliar pressure.

Without blowing smoke up the developer's backside, though, if anyone can pull off such a feat, it's surely them. The fact that Rockstar has shown us absolutely nothing to this end concerns me ever-so-slightly—but I guess the arrival of the series' first single-player venture in close to a decade-and-a-half will serve as a pretty good distraction from what may or may not lie ahead. And that grace period between GTA 6's imminent console launch and its long-awaited arrival on PC gives Rockstar plenty of time to sort itself out with an eye on our platform of choice.

I still remember the long ritual of installing World of Warcraft to my parents' laptop as a young'un, mystified by the sheer number of discs it took to squeeze the game onto a hard drive.

The more discs a game took to install, the better it must be, I figured—child me would be aghast at the contemporary world, where game boxes come with mere codes inside and PlayStation is killing off disc production. That last factoid has triggered commentary all over the industry and beyond, with everyone from Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot and French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon weighing in.

Speaking to IGN, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser gave his own commentary on the physical vs. digital debate with a multifaceted answer. "I don't know that I care. If people want that, I think companies should provide it," he said.

"But I don't know that I personally care. And I also think the ability to update games, as critical as people are of digital releases, the ability to update and fix problems in games has been really useful for the quality of games." Notably, both physical and downloadable patches existed before digital distribution became the rule. Magazines like the superlative PC Gamer would even help distribute them!

Grand Theft Auto writer Jeffrey Crawford "Lazlow" Jones, who was with Houser for the interview, weighed in as well. "I mean, we all have that sort of feeling of when you get that copy and you put the disc on the console, but I also have to say, I really like being at the airport and going, 'oh cool, I can download some quick games to my Steam Deck for this 12-hour flight."

Jones went on to talk about how tangibility still has its perks even as a creator: "[It's] just really fulfilling to have a physical thing you can say, 'Look, we made a thing.'" Houser followed up, "I love physical media. I think everyone does, you know." It's worth noting that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be both a digital-only game and console-exclusive at launch.

I still remember cursing aloud when I was first sent to prison in GTA 5 roleplay.

You see, unlike in regular Grand Theft Auto—story mode or Online—getting arrested in RP has consequences. Sure, you face the same trigger-happy cops when you fall foul of the law, where you're pursued until either dead or in cuffs, and are then hit with the same 'Wasted' or 'Busted' mandates depending on the outcome of the chase. Assuming the latter transpires, however, you don't simply receive a fine and a reset wanted star meter—in the majority of GTA RP servers, you instead respawn in the Bolingbroke penitentiary.

The magnitude of your crime determines the length of your stay as you pace around the recreation ground doing everything you can to avoid contact with anyone else, lest you find yourself punching lumps out of one another and extending your stay. Now, XmanStudios has introduced the whole ordeal to GTA 5 singleplayer by way of their mod, Jailbreak.

"Jailbreak is a GTA 5 script that adds a prison sentence system to singleplayer," reads the mod's description. "If the player dies or gets arrested while wanted, they are transported to Bolingbroke Penitentiary and must serve a sentence based on the wanted level they had at the time.

"The current version includes prison bus transport, prison processing, prisoner outfits, sentence timers, cell entrance and exit markers, lockdown triggers, guard reactions, baton-based cell returns, and basic escape behaviour. During normal prison time, guards and prisoners roam around the prison. If the player causes trouble, enters restricted areas, or tries to escape, the prison can enter lockdown and guards will respond."

Through all of that, players can expect visible cell entrance and exit markers, a prison lockdown system, restricted area lockdown triggers and a brutally violent so-called 'baton-based return-to-cell system' which leaves very little to the imagination. Updates in recent weeks include basic jailbreaking features, such as Shawshank Redemption-style digging, bed dummies and stealth mechanics that only kick into gear after lights out.

A quick glance at the mod page's comments reveals the warm reception Jailbreak has received so far (a few weeks on from launch and it's cracked 3,000 downloads), however there is one that immediately caught my eye. Crazyboy4881 says: "GTA 6 NEEDS THIS." And, given the prominence of prison in the scant snatches we've seen so far of the next Grand Theft Auto adventure, I really couldn't agree more.

A man who was found liable for multiple high-profile hacks including a major leak of Grand Theft Auto 6 footage in 2022 has reportedly been released from the secure hospital where he'd been held since 2023, and is now in prison awaiting a retrial.

Arion Kurtaj, who was 18 at the time, was found by a UK court to be part of the Lapsus$ hacking group that had carried out attacks on companies including BT, Uber, Nvidia, and mostly famously, Rockstar, which suffered what we called "one of the biggest leaks in videogame history": 90 Grand Theft Auto 6 videos of varying lengths were uploaded to the GTAForums fan site, more than a year before the first official GTA 6 trailer was released.

A psychiatric assessment of Kurtaj determined that he has "acute autism," and more relevantly, that he was "highly motivated" and "continued to express the intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible," even as he was in custody for previous such crimes. He was also more than capable of following through: The Rockstar hack was carried out while Kurtaj was under police protection at a Travelodge hotel, reportedly using only an Amazon Firestick, the television in his room, and a cell phone.

The results of that assessment meant the jury in the case was only asked to determine if Kurtaj had committed the hacks, not if he'd done so with criminal intent. After it was found that he had, Kurtaj was sentenced to a secure hospital, for life or until doctors determined that he's no longer a danger.

That determination has apparently now been made. BBC correspondent Joe Tidy, who covered the case and initial sentencing, said on Bluesky that Kurtaj is out of the hospital and "in a normal prison awaiting retrial," currently scheduled for November—ironically, the same month that Grand Theft Auto 6 will finally launch on consoles.

How Kurtaj can be tried now for crimes committed while his mental state was such that he required multiple years of institutionalization isn't clear to me. In response to a similar query on LinkedIn, Tidy said that he is pursuing that line of inquiry as well, but added that police aren't currently saying anything about it: Just getting them to confirm that Kurtaj is out of hospital "was like getting blood out of a stone," he wrote.

The lack of a Grand Theft Auto 6 PC port at launch is a sore spot for those of us faithful to the ol' mouse and keyboard. Sure, it's not new for Rockstar to prioritise console over PC (it's got a marketing deal with Sony, after all), especially with new game launches, but I thought we were beyond that. But we've got Phantom Vice Auto to look forward to on November 19 instead, and that's probably just as good, right?

So, why is Rockstar passing on a simultaneous PC launch for its games, including the upcoming GTA 6? According to former Rockstar producer John Ricchio in an interview with Reece 'Kiwi Talkz' Reilly on YouTube, it's not because the studio doesn't "care about PC".

Ricchio describes a time when games were typically made for PC first, focusing on the strongest hardware, and then downsized for consoles before launch. Naturally, this led to some shoddy console ports cramming optimisation for weaker hardware at the last minute.

"So you're much better off starting with the constraints," Ricchio explains. "Shrinking is a lot harder than extending" to more powerful hardware. "Oh, we've got extra room. Cool. We can de-optimise some things or make them more shiny."

Ricchio then punched us in the gut, noting that back when the first Red Dead Redemption was in the lab, they had a PC port working "very early" in development. Those who patiently waited will know that the PC version came in 2024, more than 14 years later. And you can blame GTA 5.

According to Ricchio, getting PC versions ready is more about development priorities. "It's not that we don't care about PC. It was just 'is it worth spending time getting a PC port going versus working on GTA 5?' … It's never any specific, anti any platform." So, he adds, "If you're working on that, you're not working on something else usually … There has to be enough of a business reason to do some of those ports, or the lift has to be so light that it'll be super easy to do. And it's rarely super light."

It still feels like Rockstar is having its cake and eating it too, though. Ricchio points out that in the past, there were cases of "legitimate hardware limitations" when developing for console compared to PC. That power gap is "definitely closer" now.

While I'll likely be taking the hit and playing GTA 6 on console (then playing it again when the PC version eventually arrives), it turns out you lot are actually quite patient—39% of our readers are more than happy to wait. Patience is a virtue, but Rockstar knows what it's doing.

Grand Theft Auto 3's Ghost City was my first proper experience of community discovery.

I was too young to fully appreciate game-breaking in the likes of Super Mario and Alex Kidd, so the idea of flying the clipped-wing Dodo aircraft from the runway of Frances International Airport at a very specific angle in order to break the 3D map and wind up in an otherwise inaccessible area—the section which housed the game's opening bank robbery cutscene, floating well beyond the playable map—blew my teenage mind.

In 2004, modder Eliano86 built a bridge that allowed players to more formally access the area with less of the faff, however the project's original hosting platform (gta-downloads.com) has long since disappeared from the interwebs. Now, hobbyist creator Mod_Saver has resurrected that project well over two decades down the line. Enter Ghost City Available.

"For over a decade, this specific alternative bridge mod was considered 'Lost Media'," says Mod_Saver. "The original hosting platform went completely offline, and the original link was dead forever. Even the Wayback Machine couldn't recover the downloadable files. This mod was gone.

"Instead of letting it fade into history, I decided to fully recreate and resurrect it from scratch based on an old 2012 video (GTA 3 - Tips & Tricks - How to Reach Ghost Town by GTA Series Videos) footage. But I didn't just clone it: I fixed its biggest flaw. The original 2004 mod was strictly visual (you would fall straight through the Ghost Town floor). 22 years later, I have finally built the missing collision files (.col) to make the entire island solid and fully playable for the very first time."

Which is pretty beautiful, truth be told. I'm a sucker for game preservation, for unearthing secrets and for the passion that drives each and every hobbyist endeavour—in this case in relation to a game now 25 years old and an OG mod just a few years younger.

As a documented remaster liker, it was a real black day for me when Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition came out, back in 2021. It was a complete mess, filled with bugs, shoddily upscaled textures, weird models, and at least one alarmingly smooth hexagon. It was shoddy treatment for a series of legendary games, and the outcry was immediate and intense—in a perhaps telling sign, the remasters' original developer, Grove Street Games (GSG), found itself unceremoniously removed from the game's splash screen in a 2024 patch.

Now, in a chat with Wccftech, GSG CEO Thomas Williamson has chatted a little about how he now reflects on the GTA Trilogy debacle. In short: he agrees they were busted, but says the metrics showed that many players enjoyed them anyway.

"Regarding GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition, I agreed with most of the people's reactions," said Williamson. "But unfortunately, I feel like we did not agree with how the game was released and the response to it from a development side, and I think that would have changed the narrative significantly.

"However, at the end of the day, looking at the behind-the-scenes metrics on those games, there were a lot of people who were playing them and really enjoying them." I must confess, I'm a little sceptical about this. I don't doubt that GSG and Rockstar's metrics showed a lot of people playing the GTA Trilogy, but I'm not sure they were able to gauge their level of enjoyment or satisfaction with the work that had been done. Just because people were playing the remasters doesn't mean they were happy with them; they may have had no alternative—the original GTA trilogy has been delisted on numerous storefronts.

But Williamson says he understands the disappointment, and reckons a truly ideal set of remasters would need to be done in-house at Rockstar, not outsourced. "There was also a lot of people who wanted more, and I don't blame them. We all view these games as these really, really important milestones in gaming history, so I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to work on them… I don't think there'll ever be a perfect redux of those that's not done by Rockstar proper. If their Rockstar North team took it on and did some crazy thing, that would be awesome."

The GTA Trilogy last got a patch—which added a very popular classic lighting system—in 2024. I maintain a forlorn hope it will some day get another one. It's not the catastrophe it was at launch, but games as important as GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas deserve better than what we have currently. At the very least, Rockstar could plump to put the complete original soundtracks back on the in-game radio.

We're in the endgame now for Grand Theft Auto 6, and with just 139 days to go players are beginning to scrimp and save for its anticipated release—if they haven't pre-ordered the standard or controversial ultimate edition already. We've seen some resourceful players utilise Bing and Microsoft Rewards to get an impressive discount, but that's not the only way you can get some dollars off the price.

Another fortunate gamer managed to save $77.87 for their pre-order, cutting the price of GTA 6's standard edition from $79.99 down to just $2.12, all thanks to cash back on Best Buy.

"Upgraded to the PS5 Pro a few months ago just to make sure my setup was ready for launch," tangyredapple explains. "Totally forgot I used my Best Buy card for the console and racked up a ton of cash back from it.

"I checked my account today when the pre-orders went live, stacked my reward certificates with a 10% off coupon, and walked away paying less than three bucks for the game. Just a heads up to check your Best Buy reward points or other cash back! If you bought a console recently to prep for the game, you might basically have this paid for already. See y'all in Vice City."

For those who are curious as to why they didn't splurge out the extra $20 for the ultimate edition, physical pre-orders (sans the disc, rip) are only available for the standard edition. But you can subsequently pay for the upgrade after the fact.

These kinds of money saving tricks may sound fairly obvious, but it clearly pays to pay attention and check out discounts wherever possible. GTA 6 isn't as expensive as I thought it would be, although that's a low bar, but it's still a hefty price if you want to be able to access all the content there is. So my advice would be to check out Microsoft Rewards, use Bing (I know, I'm sorry), and keep an eye out for any other way you could get some money off, every little helps.

Rockstar's a big company—and while we're excited for Grand Theft Auto 6, that doesn't sideline the studio's potential for cruddiness. Both from a consumer-facing point of view (like GTA 6 being fully digital) or an employee-facing one, with union-busting allegations in the UK still ongoing.

It looks like, even outside of that dispute, there are still problems. Union members who aren't embroiled in the current legal quagmire spoke to GameDeveloper about their experience with the studio, and it's not looking particularly solid there, either.

The developers, which the report states "chose to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal"—already a bad sign—go into a trio of problems with the company that's making things difficult. Namely bonuses, gender pay gaps, and crunch.

Firstly, that the lack of transparency around those bonuses makes it a useful carrot on the stick for leadership—and a mental nightmare of invisible chess for employees, given they've got no idea whether their bonuses will be good or not, or what even goes into one:

"The reasoning given for this is often nebulous," GameDeveloper is told, "Inconsistent between departments, even inconsistent between team members within the same department, and sometimes hinges on completely subjective or retroactive criticisms.

"They are under no obligation to show their working. Employees want good pay, and if literally anything they do that year could affect it, they will naturally feel they have to be as pliable as possible to their boss's whims."

The report also states that initiatives to address gender pay gaps were scrapped, and that night workers were no longer given extra compensation for their hours. It doesn't help that there's still reportedly an attempt to normalise crunch within the company.

In the UK, labour laws have a baked-in maximum working time of 48 hours a week unless workers opt-out. These employees claim that not only had Rockstar baked in that opting-out into their contracts, but that the steps towards opting back into the regulations (which every employee has a right to do) were obfuscated by the company, requiring a union campaign to inform them they had the choice.

"The union successfully ran a campaign to inform people they could opt back in to the regulations at any time, which resulted in Rockstar management simplifying the process and removing the obligation to meet with HR.

"Part of the problem with crunch is that there is not an agreed definition, and now it seems the company thinks that offering specific and limited compensation as an incentive for overtime means it no longer qualifies as crunch."

The employees claim, also, that this crunch is applied inconsistently across teams, with some who "seem to never get out of it—and often colleagues do not realize the opposite group exists".

Take-Two's response to GameDeveloper's request for comment is mostly boilerplate corporate stuff, but it's only fair I include it here, too: "We strive to make the best games possible by giving our talented teams world-class work environments and ongoing career opportunities. We have fostered a culture which is focused on teamwork, excellence, and kindness, and where we support and reward the team across all levels of the business through competitive compensation and benefits policies.

"We are proud that as a result, our employee retention is well above the industry standard. We have received a request from a union seeking to discuss voluntary recognition. We value an open and constructive dialogue with all stakeholders and will arrange to meet."

And hey, at least Take-Two's meeting with them—a low bar, but it's at least being crawled over. It might be that Rockstar's deciding not to get in hot water again while it's still legally tangled in another union-busting accusation.

It feels like the whole world is on tenterhooks for the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, if not because they are excited for a videogame then because it feels like Rockstar is propping up that part of the global economy not propped up by AI. But I'll tell you one guy who isn't going to play: Vitaly Milonov, a deputy of Russia's Duma from the United Russia party, who recently lambasted the game for carrying "the stench of Americanism."

In a recent chat with Russian radio station Govorit Moskva, Milonov gave Rockstar a piece of his mind: "GTA, from its very first version, has been about violence and hooliganism," Milonov told the station. "The last version doesn't differ at all from those before it, in terms of deviance."

What does he mean by "deviance"? Well, a little about Milonov: a member of Russia's ruling party, Milonov has long made a name for himself as a blowhard campaigner against gay rights and 'non-traditional values' in Russian society. He has, in the course of his career, spearheaded laws banning "gay propaganda," lost the plot over gay Finnish stamps, slung anti-semitic insults at Jewish political opponents, and called LGBT rights activists "non-human". He is deputy chairman for the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children.

But despite his lifelong commitment to persecuting innocent people, Milonov actually doesn't seem worried that the GTA 6 hype will end up converting innocent Russians to lifestyles he disapproves of.

"I do not think that the game can strongly persuade anyone to adopt such a lifestyle," he continued, "if only because a normal person understands that it's about the world of the USA. There—violence, sex and drugs really reign. You immerse yourself in the stench of Americanism when you play GTA."

Milonov actually seems to welcome the regular ultraviolence of GTA's world, given that it only impacts Americans. "Any violence in GTA is violence against a potential enemy, so if they all tear each other apart—even just in GTA—it will only be for the better."

Rockstar's probably not going to put that on the back of the box.

We're yet to see a single drop of gameplay footage, but I can promise you Grand Theft Auto 6 is very real and definitely happening. At least, I certainly hope it is. Rockstar opened the door for pre-orders last week with its $80 and $100 versions, the latter of which I'm not overly jazzed about.

But we're a mere five months out from exploring a modern-day Vice City and everything Leonida has to offer. Well… I say we. As far as PC goes, Rockstar has decided to not include us in what might be one of the most fervorous videogame events of the decade. Worse still, we have no idea when a PC version of GTA 6 is actually going to happen.

The sad fact is that Rockstar simply doesn't deem us a core audience. I could sit here and rant and rave about how archaic that feels in the big 2026, but our own Harvey Randall has already gone ahead and done that for me.

So instead, let me go ahead and take a peek at the results of the poll I put out to you all last week: Are you going to buy GTA 6 on console, or wait for a PC version? And I say this in the least clickbait-y way possible, but the results did genuinely surprise me.

39% of you said you're simply going to bunker down and wait for the game to come to PC. And you know what, I get it, Double-dipping on a game that expensive feels ridiculous, especially when we can wait a little longer and then (hopefully) get a superior experience—from both our hardware and also months of patches Rockstar will inevitably be pumping into the game.

I do have to admire your patience though, especially as someone who suffers from a bad case of FOMO. I'd like to get up on my high horse and declare myself perfectly capable of waiting. But, erm, I won't. Because I definitely cannot wait.

That wasn't the result that was entirely surprising to me, though. It is, in fact, the second most-voted option that really caught my attention: 28% of you said you have no interest in GTA 6 whatsoever, and so won't be buying it.

Perhaps I've simply been spending too long in the eye of the Rockstar storm, but I had expected a good deal more of you to be in the FOMO camp alongside me. Or at least, to have some modicum of interest that had you side-eyeing a lack of PC release. Has the hype grown so feral that it's turned you off entirely, or have you never been much of a Grand Theft Auto gamer to begin with? I'd love to know why you aren't interested in the game down in the comments.

As for those of you who are interested, 16% of you said you'll be picking up a copy on console. Whether that means you've already preordered or plan to scoop up the game closer to launch, at least a few of you will be diving into the action alongside our console pals. And a further 8% of you would buy GTA 6 on console… if you had one, that is. I'll be manifesting a swift PC release for you.

A few of you are on the fence too, though—8% of you have said that you're going to wait until the game is out and then make a decision. Pretty reasonable if you ask me! A game this big certainly runs the risk of being a veritable hotbed of bugs, glitches, or external discourse, so holding out to gauge initial reaction is probably the smart thing to do. Or, y'know, you'll last a few hours before the hype train's power becomes too much and you cave on the first day anyway.

Whatever you're planning to do, let me know your reasons. Or lambast me for my terrible lack of self control and very real fear of missing out. Either one'll do.

Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders went live last week. To some it was a moment of joy, finally after all these years we find ourselves a step closer to the videogame that has been promised to end all other videogames. But for others the one look at the price tag was enough to reality check all previous hype.

And then there was another, smaller camp of players, who were able to have their cake and eat it too, as they pre-ordered GTA 6 and essentially paid nothing for it. Some clever folks had been planning for this day months, even years in advance, and had spent their time searching on Bing (stay with me) to rack up Microsoft points.

Thanks to Bing's reward scheme a few players managed to save up enough points to pre-order GTA 6 at no extra cost; other than the mental and emotional cost of using Bing, which in hindsight may be greater than $100.

"I pre-ordered [GTA 6] using 98,000 Microsoft points," player HugoWheynow explained. "Thank you Rockstar for all the delays, which allowed me to have all these extra months to save my Microsoft points." While another Bing user posted their Microsoft points-paid pre-order depicting the full amount being deducted from their Microsoft account balance.

Honestly, those players deserve a free copy of GTA 6, not just for braving Bing, but also for having the forethought to min-max it over the half a year or so. At a push you could earn up to 10,000 Microsoft points (roughly equates to $10) a month, which means if you start now you could at the very least shave some money off of GTA 6's price tag. Who knows, maybe you could even turn it into a reasonably priced game?

Searching on Bing alone can get you around 5,000 points every month. Combine that with opening the Bing app on your phone, playing any game on Xbox Game Pass, complete extra tasks under the 'More Activities' category, and even selling your friend's soul by referring them to Bing and you could be on your way to getting a decent chunk of money off on your GTA 6 pre-order or flat out purchase.

Once you have enough points, or are happy with what you've earned, you can head over to the Microsoft Rewards dashboard, select get my rewards and redeem your points into an Xbox Gift Card which you can then use to purchase GTA 6. All you have to do is weigh up whether using Bing is worth it or not.

Grand Theft Auto 6 feels a little more real this week after Rockstar dropped over 60 new screenshots and opened the floodgates for pre-orders. My cynical feelings around its $100 Ultimate Edition aside, it's hard to not at least have one toe on the hype train—just about everyone's talking about it, both the good and the bad.

So it feels like a great time to revisit a question I asked you lovely folks a few weeks back around what you want to see out of Grand Theft Auto 6's radio stations. For me, music is such an integral part of the series—its radio stations are a hotbed of parody and their music serves as wonderful time capsules for the time period each game is set in.

That's why I'm so interested to see what these stations will bring in GTA 6. As for what you guys want, you had some very insightful responses.

AgentZee is absolutely on the same wavelength as me, saying they'd love to see Something Good by Alt-J make an appearance, commenting: "This is a great song to listen to while driving". I absolutely fell in love with this track when it made an appearance in 2015's Life is Strange—a game with a soundtrack I still adore over a decade later—and I'm already envisioning late-night drives around Leonida while this blasts in my ears.

And speaking of Leonida, some of you want to see its Florida influences shine in its musical choices. Neogunhero said "Real Florida Jit" music is a must, citing artists like Denzel Curry (who I'm a big fan of), Kodak Black, Smokerpurpp, Trick Daddy, and Ice Billion Berg. Viddy echoed that sentiment, saying it'd "be a real shame if they didn't" have some kind of Florida roots station, including "other FL natives who'd understand the realistic absurdity this game is surely going for."

Lucky said: "I want to be able to drive the stand-in for a convertible Ferrari at night while In The Air Tonight plays," which is an image I can totally picture. Wind blowing through Lucia and Jason's hair, those classic Collins drums kicking right in. Plus, the song was already in Vice City Stories, which makes GTA 6 the perfect game to bring it back, since we'll be revisiting the iconic area in all its modern-day glory.

Some of you focused more on the parody side of things, too. XoRn said they "could drive around for hours" listening to a parody news channel, while Jimfurbath said stand-up comedian "Tim Dillon hosting a conspiracy talk show radio is what GTA6 needs!"

My favourite of the whole bunch, though, has to be what Ianik has in mind for the game: "Only radio station with monks and Gregorians chorals. Without options to turn off". Incredible cursed energy, which somehow makes it the perfect choice for a game like Grand Theft Auto 6. Bring on the chants.

PC gaming entered the digital domain long before any other platform, but my heart has always lied firmly with physical media. Before I joined this team and became a full-fledged PC GamerTM, I was a console gamer—a label I have long blamed on being a child of divorce and finding it far easier to ferry an Xbox between two households than a desktop computer.

And for the most part, my console collection has always consisted of physical copies. Real, tangible discs you can pop in and hear that satisfying little whirr. And a lot of those copies I've procured secondhand. Hell, I spent nearly four years of my life working in a secondhand videogame store. The act of trading and repurposing someone's once-loved game, DVD, or CD is woven into the very fabric of my being.

For a long time, physical media was one of the most accessible, affordable ways to play videogames. Hell, there was literally a time where Sony created a 22-second marketing video mocking Xbox over its attempt to make game sharing more difficult.

I grew up doing swaps with my schoolmates. I have a distinct memory of being freshly 16 and desperately attempting to trade away a portion of my Xbox 360 collection to score a copy of Fable 3—turns out trying to sell something without ID when you're still in secondary school is an absolute ballache. I could walk into a store and come away with a pre-owned videogame that was half the price of buying it brand new.

But that's a problem, isn't it? At least, I reckon that's a problem as far as Rockstar's concerned. Its recent preorder announcement for Grand Theft Auto 6 came with a little tidbit that really bummed me out: its so-called physical editions are little more than a box containing a bit of paper with a code on it.

Is Rockstar the first developer to pull this? Of course not. Nintendo has long been using box-with-code as a way to get stuff on store shelves without needing a cartridge to do so. Alan Wake 2 received a fair bit of backlash for going digital-only, but that was in the name of keeping the game's overall price down to a respectable $60 on console and $50 on PC. And as I said at the start, PC has been almost exclusively digital for years: When was the last time you bought a used PC game at your local EB?

But consoles have remained firmly footed in the physical world, at least until now, and Rockstar has no explanation for the lack of a GTA 6 disc. There's no deep discount to excuse its decision. And I can't help but feel like it's all in the name of some bizarre form on control.

You could say it's concerned that discs will hit street sale early which could—gasp—leak information ahead of release. But Pearl Abyss literally got around this with Crimson Desert by ensuring disc copies couldn't unlock until launch day with a download. Is that the best solution? No—I don't love anything relating to physical media that requires some online component to get it up and running. But it was a workaround nevertheless.

So what is it, then? If I buy a physical copy of Grand Theft Auto 6, why can't I lend it to my mate, or sell it on for someone else to scoop up secondhand at a more affordable price? It is, quite frankly, a horrifically anti-consumer practice. Rockstar has made an abhorrent amount of money pumping microtransaction after microtransaction into GTA Online over the last 13 years. I'm sure it can afford to lose the odd copy to the secondhand market.

And if a future arises where Sony or Microsoft pack up their servers and jump off the videogame ship, what remains of GTA 6? Will it even be playable in a legitimate way? These kinds of practices aren't just harmful in the present, they have the very real potential to be harmful in the future, too. PC gamers have extensive experience in just how impermanent games can be when they're only available digitally.

Rumours have swirled around the possibility of an actual disc version of Grand Theft Auto 6 arriving after launch, though the only evidence to support that is a Reddit post displaying an incredibly vague and confusingly-worded response from a Rockstar customer support employee. I asked Rockstar whether it planned on releasing a disc copy in the future and was given no comment.

Our news writer Andy Chalk emailed Rockstar support himself and received a boilerplate response pointing him towards articles relating to the game's various editions, a support FAQ, and redeeming GTA+ membership.

Even if it does emerge with a disc-only version later down the line, that feels worse to me somehow. The earliest adopters get shafted by some weird Rockstar semantics. Or even worse, it encourages said early adopters to double-dip just to add a disc version to their collection. Either way, the only party coming out on top here is a multi-billion dollar corporation. And that sucks butt.

When Rockstar announced that GTA 6 preorders would begin this week, everyone started speculating that a new trailer must finally be imminent. After years of leaks and delays, the developer must be planning to finally show at least a little actual Vice City gameplay. But preorders are live and there's no trailer in sight.

Nada. It's wild for Rockstar to be asking us for a minimum $80 to preorder a game it hasn't actually shown any gameplay for, right?

I know it's been over four years since the triple-A class of game started going for $70, and Nintendo's already been asking for $80, but it sure does chafe seeing GTA 6 preorders start at $80, and obnoxiously lock some gameplay behind a $100 "Ultimate Edition" right from the jump. The insult on top of injury is that Rockstar hasn't even shown us the game.

GTA 6 has had two trailers. The first was a 90 second reveal trailer and the second was a 3-ish minute spotlight on protagonists Jason and Lucia, both cinematic and story-focused. Even all those 63 new GTA 6 images were mostly Ultimate Edition ads, character artwork, and photo mode-style shots. We have not seen GTA 6 being played. Not at all!

Yes, we've seen some years-old leaked gameplay. Yes, it's a GTA game so we can probably pretty well guess what it plays like (a long conversation while driving then some snap-to-head gunplay). Dammit it's the principle of the thing though. I feel like I'm getting mugged, and not in a fun GTARP kind of way.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that aside from educated speculation we don't actually know when GTA 6 might launch on PC. So I'm not preordering nuthin' because I don't own a current generation console. It will come to PC eventually, though, and this doesn't bode well for how Rockstar will treat us when it does.

This can't be the first time a publisher has ever had the hubris to sell a game without a gameplay trailer, but it sure looks like the height of arrogance from Rockstar. I suppose it thinks GTA 6 is too big to fail. It's probably right.

Grand Theft Auto 6 now feels quite a bit more tangible—preorders are live, and November is right around the corner. But amid this flurry of information and unrelenting hype came a bit of bad news for the GTA Online crowd: GTA 6 is being pushed as a "singleplayer experience".

Despite its impending launch, there's actually been precious little information about the next phase of the madcap online world. Granted, there's been precious little information about the game period. Rockstar knows it doesn't need to give anything away. It could ignore the pleas for a gameplay trailer right up until launch if it wanted to.

Regardless, we know some new version of the online mode must be coming. GTAO is why people are still playing this 13-year-old game, and while Red Dead Online never exploded in popularity like its predecessor, this doesn't feel like something Rockstar is going to give up on—certainly not after it acquired Cfx.re, the team behind FiveM.

So we can reasonably assume that GTAO 2 will launch later—perhaps to coincide with the arrival of GTA 6 on PC, which really is the home of GTA roleplaying. There's no indication when that might happen, though. This is classic Rockstar. It's a closed book, and it doesn't matter that PC is GTA's most popular individual platform, because the near-mythical reputation of this company means it doesn't need to use the conventional marketing playbook.

Let's face it, there's also probably a more insidious reason: If you own both a PC and a console and are eager for GTA, you'll almost certainly be double dipping. I know I will be. Despite Sony's claim that GTA 6 will be best on PlayStation 5, we know the PC version will be far superior. But the allure, the FOMO, they are too strong.

As a journalist and critic, I naturally wish Rockstar loosened its lips a little, and I have a real problem with it selling a $100 game without letting prospective players actually know what it will be like to play. I am, however, not remotely fazed by the initial lack of multiplayer; indeed, I think it's a good thing.

Live service games have utterly dominated this decade, and while I do have some favourites, I tend to crave games where I don't need to share the space with a bunch of randos. GTAO is impressive and I had a lot of fun with it, but GTA's overwhelming popularity, since 1997 and until GTA 5, has been down to its singleplayer capers. And that should be the priority, at least initially.

This doesn't just benefit me; it benefits the GTA Online fans as well. By creating space between the two projects, both of them will get the attention they deserve. Of course Rockstar has been working on the online component for years, but there's a vast gulf between working on multiple projects and releasing them at exactly the same time.

Basically: there needs to be a focus. Given the length of its development time and the vast amount of money that's presumably been put into this behemoth, we can realistically expect an incredibly ambitious and gargantuan game. There's also an expectation of polish, but there will doubtless be myriad bugs and issues at launch. If Rockstar was also launching a massive multiplayer platform at exactly the same time, well that way leads to disaster.

With just one new live game to worry about, Rockstar will be better able to ensure a smooth launch and shore up any gaps left by its final polish pass. We will get a superior version of GTA 6, and then, further down the road, the best possible version of GTA Online 2.

Rockstar will also presumably have a huge amount of data and feedback to sift through after the singleplayer launch, which will allow it to adapt GTA Online 2 to the needs of its players. Any new systems and mechanics introduced in GTA 6 can then be refined, or changed if they create unwelcome friction, which would only become worse in a neverending online experience.

I'm hopeful—perhaps foolishly so—that the gap will also allow Rockstar to build GTA Online 2 with its community. With GTA 6 out in the wild and likely making a disgusting amount of money, maybe Rockstar will feel like actually opening up a bit, using GTA 6's playerbase to help make GTA Online 2 something properly special.

Besides: how many people would really be diving into GTA Online 2 right away? In GTA 5, GTA Online was effectively a sequel. It's what you plunge into after you've spent 100 hours mucking around solo. Granted, there's now a massive online community, so I have no doubt that some people will be more excited to get stuck into the sequel to their favourite online hangout, but they also stand to benefit the most from Rockstar taking its time rather than releasing two complex games on the same day.

Honestly, it's also just nice to see a singleplayer game dominating the dreaded discourse. I've been working in this industry since 2011, and for too much of it we've been bouncing from one multiplayer game to the next. If I ever become a supervillain, my origin story will be that I had to edit one too many Arc Raiders stories.

So yeah, this is good for everyone, and while I like to pretend I am too cynical to get swept up in all the hype, I am genuinely thrilled at the prospect of playing a new singleplayer GTA. Even if I will have to play it on my puny PS5. grand the

GTA 6 has revealed its pre-order editions and, despite lots of fancy customisation options, and a relatively predictable price for the Standard Edition, people are understandably upset about how much content (which arguably comprises a portion of GTA 6's identity) is locked behind a paywall.

Obviously, us PC gamers with consoles will have to decide whether we're purchasing, but at least we might be able to grab it on sale on PC. It is worth noting, though, that since this game is purely digital, Rockstar can keep the price high for a long time (and they almost assuredly will). Below, I'll run through the exact difference between the Standard and Ultimate Edition so you can decide which one is worth your while.

What's in the GTA 6 Standard Edition?

• Price: $79.99/£69.99
• At a glance: One month of the GTA+ subscription and the Vintage Vice City pack (only if you pre-order the game), but far fewer customisation options overall.

The cheapest option for buying GTA 6 is still $10 more than every other big-budget game launch right now and it doesn't include a bunch of the cosmetic and customisation features that the Ultimate Edition has. It's a bit dire considering going rags to riches and spending your ill-gotten gains pimping out your house, clothes, and car is a key element of the GTA series.

Both editions include a month of GTA+. The future of GTA Online is currently unclear, but it's practically inevitable that Rockstar will create a GTA 6 Online variant, too.

You do also get the Vintage Vice City pack if you pre-order (that's us PC folks screwed I guess, unless we get it in some future 'complete edition'), which takes a little bit of the sting off. This cosmetic pack contains:

• Outfits and hairstyles: "Dress for excess with Jason’s effortlessly chic linen suit in vintage pastel, complemented by the cut and coif of the decade of decadence. Show everyone the world is yours in Lucia’s red sequin mini dress and curls."
• '55 Vapid Stanier: "Cruise Shore Drive in this classic sedan and store it just a stone's throw from the glistening sands of Ocean Beach in the Shore Court garage, complete with a weapon locker plus a secure place to deposit stolen goods to be fenced."
• Exclusive Weapon Pattern: "Adorn most guns with a tropical pattern inspired by Tommy Vercetti's iconic palm tree button-up."

It's a drop in the bucket in comparison to the cosmetic options you'll lose by not purchasing the Ultimate Edition, but I guess that's why they made it a pre-order bonus, so people would feel less crap about what is essentially locking cut-content behind an upgrade. Post-release, this pack will likely be available for purchase, too.

What's in the GTA 6 Ultimate Edition?

• Price: $99.99/£89.99
• At a glance: One month of the GTA+ subscription, the Vintage Vice City pack, and the Ultimate Edition upgrade (which you will almost definitely be able to purchase separately post-launch, so don't feel pressured to decide now)

The Ultimate Edition contains everything in GTA 6, unlocking all customization features throughout Vice City. The annoying part is that it includes what sound like job-style activities and vendors who will customize your cars and characters.

Take the "Classic Car Collection", for example, which sees you "track down a variety of abandoned classic and work-in-progress project cars and revitalize them". That sounds like a whole mini-questline you won't be able to access with standard. There's also vehicle customisation, a salon, a tattoo parlor, and clothing shops you can't use without ultimate, which, frankly, sucks. Here's everything included:

Vehicles and garages

• '95 Grotti Cheetah: "Grotti's signature mid '90s sports car and ode to Shore Drive, the ’95 Grotti Cheetah is complete with a minimalist, retro-futuristic livery and available to punctuate later-stage action."
• Ganado Retro Build: "Inject some muscle and classic stylings into Jason's well-worn Vapid Ganado low-riding pickup with exclusive mods."
• Shitzu Squalo: "Perfect for casting in Gambit Bay and reeling in catches of all sorts, this gradient pink and blue Squalo docked at Washington Beach is made open-ocean-ready with an explosives-laden weapons crate."
• '67 Vapid Dominator Buggy and Garage: "A Mud Club monster offering impressive off-road handling for the backwoods of Mount Kalaga and beyond. Conveniently store it at the Paradise Garage in Watson Bay, which features a weapon locker plus a secure place to deposit stolen goods to be fenced."
• Jason's Safehouse Vehicles: "Switch gears and soak up the sun in an Army fatigue-tinged Dinka Enduro motorcycle or Crest Kayak."

Weapons and cosmetics

• Hawk & Little Morgan Revolver: "His and hers versions of this powerful revolver with classic Vice City stylings sourced from the Vercetti Estate, including palm-tree-etched grips, engraved detailing, and high-performance scope."
• Personalized Weapon Variants: "Personalized sidearms with detailed engravings for Jason's Girardi ES9 pistol and Lucia's Klose K17 pistol."
• Vice City Style: "Whether poolside or side by side, Jason and Lucia can look the part with exclusive outfits, tattoos, and more."
• Goodtime Gear: "A capsule collection of apparel and accessories inspired by the Goodtime State’s hit TV show character, Macca the Alligator."

Unique activities and vendors

• Classic Car Collection: "Track down a variety of abandoned classic and work-in-progress project cars and revitalize them to their former glory in this special commission from eccentric collector and local fixer, Wyman."
• Ptt Youngin$ Compound: "Raid the compound of one of Southside Vice City’s loudest and most socially active gangs and escape safely to score some special items and distinct contraband."
• Rideout Customs: "Transform vanilla vehicles into magnificent works of art with detailed interiors, exquisite rims, and donk stylings."
• Sara's Unisex Salon: "Get signature salon styles for both Jason and Lucia, including facial hair for Jason and makeup and nails for Lucia."
• Stock 305: "Style various unique and exclusive looks for Jason and Lucia at Stockyard’s premiere destination for elevated streetwear."
• Electric Fang Tattoo: "Choose from over 50 signature tattoos for both Jason and Lucia — all designed by the artist collective FAILE at Stockyard’s most iconic ink bar."
• One-Eyed Willie's: "Visit Lake Leonida’s storied mod shop, specializing in off-road modifications and hand-painted automotive artistry."

So, as you can see, the $20 upgrade unlocks an absolute ton of stuff. Should a lot of this have been part of the base game? Yes, yes it should. All I can really say is purchase accordingly or, hey, not at all.

We've been talking about it for years and yet we're still waiting to hear when GTA 6 will launch on PC. History says it will probably be around a year after the console launch and that Rockstar probably won't even confirm a PC release date until next year either. How deep into the Leonida weeds can I get trying to divine an answer? At least deep enough to get WASTED by rogue wildlife, probably.

When might the GTA 6 PC release date be?

The PC release date for GTA 6 likely won't be before November 2027. That's my best guess based on the timeline of Rockstar's past PC ports, because so far it hasn't even given an estimate for a PC launch window.

For its last three major releases (including RDR2), the delay from console launch to PC has ranged from 7 months (GTA 4) to 19 months (GTA 5), though Rockstar's original plan before delays was about 14 months between console and PC for GTA 5.

Adding insult to injury, it would be in keeping with its playbook for Rockstar to not announce a PC release date until well after the console version has been out. It confirmed a PC version of GTA 4 the summer of 2008, several months after the console launch. It did nearly the same with GTA 5, launching on consoles in September 2013, announcing a GTA 5 PC release date in summer 2014, and then delaying the PC version several times into 2015—yes, it launched on two console generations before coming to PC. With RDR2 it just straight up waited a year after the console launch to confirm what we all knew: RDR2 would come to PC, giving us just a month's notice.

So not only will GTA 6 probably not launch on PC until the back half of 2027, Rockstar may not even deign to give us a date until sometime next year either.

Rockstar's past PC port timelines

*Not to be confused with the version formerly known as GTA 5 Enhanced Edition which was the next gen console launch on November 18, 2014. My brain hurts.

Why is Rockstar still not prioritizing PC launches?

In May 2026, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said that Rockstar prioritizes console releases because "you're judged by serving the core." At the same time, he guestimated that PC could account for 45-50% of the sales of a "major launch" for Take-Two. So we know, as presumably does Zelnick, that any claim that PC isn't the "core" audience for GTA 6 is total baloney.

The answer here is probably as simple as: They hope you'll buy it twice. Or maybe even three times, if they manage to do a console release, a next-gen console release, and then a PC release, as they did with GTA 5.

Next-gen consoles and GTA Online complicate predictions

We are, I'm afraid, in a similar situation to the one GTA 5 launched into. The future of the consoles is murky at the moment due to the AI-driven memory price quagmire, but Microsoft said this year that it's "deep in development" of the next Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, and we assume the same about Sony and the next PlayStation.

It's possible, then, that we won't see GTA 6 on PC until sometime after it launches on Project Helix and PlayStation 6. That could put its PC release sometime in 2028 or even later.

Things have changed since the last console generation switchover, though. The consoles are only getting more PC-like, so there won't be any technical justification for withholding a PC version a second time—not that Rockstar needs one, but perhaps the uncertainty around hardware prices will stall the next-gen consoles, or at least give Rockstar a reason not to wait around for them.

Rockstar also hasn't told us what's happening with GTA Online yet. At launch, GTA 6 is purely a singleplayer game, but there must be big plans for the series' online offering—they didn't acquire the creators of GTA 5 roleplaying mod FiveM for nothing.

It may behoove Rockstar to time its GTA 6 PC launch with whatever big GTA Online refresh it has planned, and with the rest of the industry also champing at the bit to launch the next great live-service, UGC-focused game/platform, I don't imagine Rockstar wants to dilly-dally.

Coming up next on GTA 6's road to launch is the big gameplay reveal—finally—which is happening August 27, first on Netflix and then on YouTube. I doubt we'll learn more about Rockstar's PC intentions there, but we still might come away with some clues.

Here at PC Gamer, we're all very excited about Grand Theft Auto 6—given it's one of the biggest videogame events of the decade. Rockstar games are becoming an increasingly rarer milestone that seems determined to bring some new big-swing advancement in tech. For instance, gorgeous graphics that're pretty enough to send me into an existential crisis.

Given preorders went up today, you might think that has us all a-flutter with excitement. But 'lo, what's this? It's not coming for PC? Phooey!

Back in 2026, Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two and occasional philosopher, told Bloomberg that "Rockstar always starts on console because I think with regard to a release like that you're judged by serving the core".

The implication that we're both not Rockstar's core consumer base. Left out in the rain, looking sad and glassy-eyed from under our collective umbrella while across the way console players giggle while crashing a helicopter into a building or something.

I echo PC Gamer's own Andy Chalk—and most of our staff—when I say: Hey, what the hell? I can't think of a real advantage, aside from maybe giving your developers more time to optimise and iron out launch day bugs, to abstaining. After all, PC gaming's one of the biggest growing markets in this massive industry.

And I mean, sure, maybe we're a little sore about the fact our coverage'll be impacted by the fact most of us don't have consoles—some of us do, and they'll be working tirelessly for your benefit, but certainly not the lion's share. But even those of us with the honoured videogame boxes are going to be felt put-out by Zelnick's artificial cool kids club.

There's a sort of sorrow to all of this by way of the fact that GTA 6 is likely to be one of the prettiest games in recent memory, and yet it'll be leashed to crummy hardware. Our online editor, Fraser Brown, rallied against the subpar experience of gaming on console as compared to his beastly rig, and I have no doubt will have a grumble about having to play on a blurrier resolution than his 4090s, which shall be sitting in his PC the entire time, neglected.

But even I, as a 3060 peasant without a console, don't think Rockstar's in the right on this one. GTA 5's modding community is lively and vibrant and a boon to the game, and—oh, what's that? Rockstar's been clamping down on non-official mod support? Ah, that makes more sense, then.

The cynic in me also wonders (loudly, in this very article) it has something to do with GTA 6's pricing. In case you're out of the loop, the ultimate edition of the game will feature some core perks hacksawed off and stuffed into its $100 price-point, which is a huge shame.

In a hypothetical scenario, enterprising pirates or modders on PC could find a way to circumvent these artificial barriers—it could be argued that Rockstar really wants folks to splash out for that $20 markup.

Or, I have to concede, stubbornly sticking to its guns. Rockstar games rarely come with day-one PC releases to, as Zelnick said, serve its core audience of console gamers. But also, in the very same interview, Zelnick said that "with regard to a big title, PC can be 45, 50% of the sales." God damnit.

Well, Zelnick, I've got some numbers of our own. We've been running a poll, linked below, that'll be closing on the 28th of June.

Let's take a look at the numbers at the time of writing, shall we? And—oh, 39% of you aren't buying it at all. Alright, that's a pretty substantial amount of PC Gamer readers that don't like GTA, fair does.

But just 13% are excited enough to go for the console release and, as our own Ted Litchfield theorised, potentially provide Take-Two with a double-dip of sales when the PC version comes out. Now, obviously our deeply scientific and accurate polls aren't, some might argue, conclusive snapshots of PC demographics.

It does, however, mean that the majority of you who are excited about GTA 6 will be just like us website staff: Sadly gazing through a window as one of the biggest gaming events of the decade passes us by, because Zelnick doesn't think we're a core audience. Despite accounting for 45% of his business' sales. I'm gonna have an aneurysm.

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

Sure, Grand Theft Auto has always been about the shooting. The car chases. The seedy criminal activity. But it's also about looking fly as fuck while you do it. Driving around the city in expensive, tricked-out cars. Nipping to the barbershop for a nicer haircut as you climb the criminal ranks. Spending your eventual riches on parodied designer clothing and jewellery. Hitting that level of wealth where you go from looking expensive and put-together to expensive and downright ugly.

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

I never expect to have to cough up too much of my own real-life finances to do that, but if GTA 6's Ultimate Edition is anything to go by, that's exactly what I'll be doing. Rockstar's calling it the game's ultimate edition, sure, but I can't help but feel like this is what the developer actually wants the standard version to be, while its $80 version is feeling distinctly Lite Edition.

Now Deluxe/Ultimate/Premium/Insert Fancy Upgrade Term Here cosmetic exclusives are not new to videogames, and preorder bonuses have become a plague on the industry. But usually it's the odd outfit here or cosmetic pack there. Rockstar, however, is going one step further by putting entire stores on the map of Leonida that won't be accessible unless you cough up the $20 upgrade, and quite frankly that's where I have to draw the line.

As far as we know, there are currently five stores that are paywalled: Two mod shops, a clothing store, a salon, and a tattoo parlour. All offering customisation options that, at this point, I deem an integral part of this series' identity. It feels criminal that a game touting itself as the "most immersive GTA experience yet" has the very real potential to constantly pull me out of that immersion by reminding me that I've yet to spend an extra 20 bones any time I get within the vicinity of these 'premium' stores.

Who knows if we'll even be able to enter any of these stores with our paltry, peasant $80 purchase? Will the doors be locked entirely, prompting me to open the store page and fork out for the upgrade? Will I be able to enter, but told that I'm not quite elite enough to get a new paint job—of either the vehicular or manicure variety? There's no winning strategy here besides paying the full, big hundo. And even then, I still feel like I'm losing.

To me, it's a bad sign of what's to come. Not just for GTA, but for videogames. Locking off little pockets of the map for only the biggest spenders does not feel good, especially when it's for a singleplayer game. It doesn't even seem to be ending at cosmetics, either—the pre-order page also lists "action" as something reserved for the Ultimate Edition buyers.

What that looks like isn't totally clear right now—at the very least, it seems to be referring to a series of side missions called PTT Youngin$ Compound and Scores, where you'll raid this gang's store for contraband and special items. This stuff used to be in the game for no additional cost, guys! Come on, now.

The worst part is, this is going to work. The FOMO of shuttered stores and exclusive cars will entice a whole bunch of people to settle on the more expensive version. And quite frankly, I can't blame them. But I also wish Rockstar had simply folded all of this in and offered a flat $100 videogame. That probably would've pissed people off too, but I'd prefer this over paywalling stuff that's been a part of the series for years and acting like it's some kind of cool bonus. Instead, the whole thing comes off as mighty greedy.

Grand Theft Auto 6—which you would be forgiven for thinking is a videogame, but is actually a civilisational event on par with man's exile from Eden—got a big infodump today, ahead of its preorders kicking off. One smidge of that infodump? A treasure trove of new screenshots to market the game's pricier Ultimate Edition, showing off Vice City, protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, and a lot of guns 'n' cars.

Obviously, you would like to look at them, and I am nothing if not a servant of your will. So here are all the new screenshots Rockstar has published from GTA 6, divided conveniently by content.

Jason and Lucia

I'll be honest, I find these shots the most exciting. Ever since GTA 4, I've mourned the robust customisation options Rockstar gave us for CJ in GTA: San Andreas. Sure, GTA 5 had a suite of options, but I never felt like Michael, Franklin, or Trevor could get as varied as CJ could back in the day. Here, though? Jason and Lucia can look really dang different, aided in no small part by just how impressive Rockstar's graphics tech has gotten in the 13 years since GTA 5's release.

Guns guns guns

Looks like GTA 6 expands a whole bunch of GTA 5's relatively paltry gun cosmetics, taking a leaf out of Red Dead Redemption 2's book to let you style your weapons of war in all manner of ways. Including putting your names on them. Which seems like a bad thing to do. As a criminal.

Cars

Yes, Rockstar still likes cars a whole bunch, and I must admit they do look very good as they lounge in Vice City's sunset and neon. These are Ultimate Edition screens, remember—small temptations to get you to fork over $100 for the game's rich-guy edition, so if you want to get your hands on a lot of these wheels in particular, be prepared to pay for it.

Stores of Vice City

One of Rockstar's more egregious moves with its preorder campaign is that there are a few fancy customisation shops—tattoo parlours, vehicle mod joints—that will be straight-up closed if you don't have the (more) expensive edition. They do look nice though. Vice City's petit-bourgeoisie look like a classic rogue's gallery of Rockstar freaks and weirdos.

Boats

Florida, remarkably, is surrounded by water, and it sure looks like you'll be spending a lot of your time on the surf as you do your various crimes. My favourite part: that's a damn dolphin, no doubt rendered with Rockstar's classically unhinged attention to detail.

Well, gamers. It's been months of rumours and analysts offering their thoughts on what Grand Theft Auto 6 was going to cost. The big $100 has been thrown around a bunch in that time, despite living in a world where normal videogames cost $70. In this morning's meeting with a couple fellow PC Gamer writers, I theorised $80 would probably be the number.

Turns out, we were both right. Kinda.

In anticipation of pre-orders going live on June 25—here's when that'll be for wherever you are in the world—Rockstar has already laid out how much you can expect to pay. It's offering two editions, Standard and Ultimate, coming in at $80 and $100 respectively. Except I'd argue that the $80 is more of a basic edition, if Rockstar's insane marketing on the big hundo version is anything to go by.

That's because the Ultimate Edition is set to contain "an exclusive collection of premium vehicles, weapons, apparel, and action threaded across all aspects of Jason and Lucia’s story." How does that look in practice? Well, we know there's at least one exclusive salon offering haircuts for both characters, with makeup and manicures for Lucia and facial hair for Jason. There's also an Ultimate Edition-exclusive mod shop, where you can "transform vanilla vehicles into magnificent works of art with detailed interiors, exquisite rims, and donk stylings." That's perhaps the most egregious one in all of the Ultimate Edition "goodies".

Whether these are customisation options you can only get with the Ultimate Edition, or whether there'll be some peasant stores for us $80 buyers, isn't entirely clear yet. Either way, I definitely have thoughts on locking away some of the coolest things about the series behind an extra 20 bucks.

I really can't help but feel like $100 is the price Rockstar (or at least the big wigs) want to charge. "Hey guys! You want the FULL Grand Theft Auto 6 gaming experience? It's only an extra $20!!" Or something like that. The developer is certainly marketing the Ultimate Edition as the best way to play GTA 6—literally, the pre-order news says it "amplifies the deepest and most immersive GTA experience yet".

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It does also feel a little strange to see all these extra cosmetics for a game we've barely seen any actual gameplay for yet. But hey, that's modern videogames for you, I suppose.

Locked shops and cosmetics aside, I am still pretty excited for Grand Theft Auto 6. All the excitement of new screenshots has been dampened somewhat by knowing they come with an extra price tag, but it's done the job of both giving me FOMO and making me hungry to see more of what Leonida has to offer.

The GTA 6 pre-orders are going live soon, letting you pre-purchase your chosen edition of the game for when it launches in November. You might be wondering why there's so much fuss around a pre-order, but since GTA 5, a GTA release has become a once-in-a-decade global phenomenon, even if it isn't confirmed when we'll be getting it on our personal computers.

Rockstar has officially released info explaining when pre-orders go live for each region, so I'll explain that down below, plus a few other things we've learned today.

GTA 6 pre-order release times

You can pre-order Grand Theft Auto 6 on June 25 at midnight local time. Yes, that means no simultaneous release across the globe, but it'll actually vary based on where you live. The info was shared on Rockstar Games official instagram, so you can believe the validity of the source. Sadly, there's no word of a PC release date yet, but it'll most likely come later on as with the previous game.

Rockstar has released info about each edition of the game and their bonuses on its official site. It does look like GTA 6 will also cost $79.99 and $99.99 according to info that's emerged, which is a little more expensive than many were expecting.

We might also get to see a new trailer when pre-orders drop as an added incentive, though I guess with where the hype's currently at it might not even be necessary. Hopefully those pre-ordering will get to see more of the game before they do anyway.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is still five months away (on consoles, remember, no PC release date yet) and preorders won't be live until later this week. But that apparently hasn't stopped numerous websites from promising eager fans that they can get early access to the game right now for a price. Lest there be any doubt, cybersecurity company Malwarebytes is warning that they're nothing but a scam.

A report posted today says "a new wave of scam websites" are offering "VIP early access" to the next GTA in exchange for a grossly inflated price of "a few hundred dollars," payable in cryptocurrency. Malwarebyte also shared a few images of the scam sites in question.

One site leverages GTA 6, Mr. Beast, and Lego all at the same time—a powerful combo, no doubt.

But of course, there's nothing to be had. Worse, because payments are made in crypto, there's no way to recover or report the loss. The money is gone and there's no getting it back.

Stefan Dasic of Malwarebytes described GTA 6 as "the perfect bait" for scams like this in his report. Grand Theft Auto is among the biggest game franchises in the world, with hundreds of millions of copies sold, and it's been 13 years since GTA 5. The hype for GTA 6 is enormous, and "scammers simply exploit that excitement."

You might think that this sort of thing is way too obvious for anyone to fall for, but as a wise old friend once told me, you don't know what you don't know. I've been online for almost as long as 'online' has existed, and I write about this stuff for a living—but a 14-year-old with a smartphone, no matter how hip to the scene he may appear, might be tempted to take a shot.

But it's not just kids, to be clear. As the report points out (and as we've all no doubt seen once or twice in our lives), burning desire can overwhelm chilled caution, and verbiage used on these scam sites encourage impulsive decisions. They also look pretty legit, and the situation is further confused by the fact that preordering a more expensive edition for "advance access" to a new release is very common for videogames now.

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Dasic said Malwarebytes doesn't have information on how many people are visiting these sites but the bottom line is that, like all scams, they persist because they work.

"I am amazed when I see which scams managed to fool people," Dasic told PC Gamer. "There will always be at least one person that will fall for this—either being too young, or too immature, probably not well informed and just wanting to be the first to have their hands on something before everyone else."

Just about everyone is hot to trot for GTA 6, but keep this in mind and keep a clear head: There is no Grand Theft Auto 6 early access at this point. If Rockstar does announce some kind of premium "advance access" for GTA 6, you should only buy it from official sources. And last but certainly not least, if a site is insisting that you pay with crypto it's time to put your hand on your wallet and head for the door. (That last one is pretty much a universal truth, though, so apply it across the board.)

Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19, and preorders—official, real, not-a-scam preorders—will begin on June 25. We're still waiting for the PC version to be announced.

I've spent an inordinate amount of my life watching Grand Theft Auto machinima over the last decade. And while I can certainly appreciate the amount of editing and effort that goes into each video's production—I don't always think of that toil when gawping at the finished article. According to filmmaker Jordy Veenstra, however, that polished end result only tells half the story.

To this end, Veenstra recently broadcast a pair of "Machinima Dev Streams" on YouTube and Twitch, offering viewers a rare look behind the curtain at the often messy, highly technical process of creating films inside GTA 5. Rather than focusing on a completed project, the streams documented the work as it happened through the lens of location scouting, scene-staging, camera planning, technical troubleshooting, and the occasional game crash for good measure.

"Instead of sharing and reflecting upon the final cinematic product, the streams showcased the creative process in real time," Veenstra explains. "The viewers could observe how environments were not merely evaluated for their aesthetics but also for factors such as symbolism, lighting conditions, narrative intentions and composition."

The streams also highlighted the less glamorous side of machinima production. Veenstra demonstrated the use of tools such as Menyoo and ScriptHookVDotNet while experimenting with staging techniques and in-game programming solutions. Some ideas worked, while others didn't. At one point, the game froze entirely, forcing a restart mid-stream.

"Sometimes things don't work the way we want to and we must work around them," Veenstra says, describing it as one of the key lessons of machinima production. "In true machinima-type fashion, the game even crashed a few times live on stream or froze in such a way that the stream had to be restarted: all with live debugging.

"These events are all examples of the hands-on and participative nature of machinima (such as testing, rehearsing, adjusting and on-the-fly decision-making) and I think the streams captured them very well from a wide angle perspective."

Veenstra explains that the idea for the streams emerged from a simple question—that after spending countless hours working alone on projects, he'd wondered whether there might be value in sharing the "creative process, lines of thought, hardships, euphoria, bugs/workarounds and other events" that filmmakers encounter during production.

Through this, the response has been positive enough that more streams are already being considered. Future broadcasts could explore subjects ranging from framing and depth-of-field techniques to virtual lighting systems inside VRChat, Veenstra says, where creators can build real-time light shows using DMX protocols commonly found in physical venues.

Veenstra adds: "I hope during future Machinima Dev streams that I am able to share broader creative insights from a multitude of technical angles, software and games, all within a typical hands-on fashion.

"I started this series of streams on a single line of thought. I was working by myself on machinima projects for hours on end and simply wondered: wouldn't it be interesting to share some of the creative process, lines of thought, hardships, euphoria, bugs, workarounds and other events that I encounter on a day-to-day basis for fellow filmmakers, machinima artists or other enthusiasts to see?"

I got pretty excited when I saw the gator on the recently announced Grand Theft Auto 6 cover art yesterday, besides from being an icon of Florida, they're also just cute lil guys. But it seems that I'm not as big of a fan as I thought, because there's something not right about that gator.

"Something seemed off with the number of teeth the gator on the cover had (of course it did—why didn't I think of that) so I did a count and it seems the gator has 60 teeth," ITehJelleh says in a Reddit post. For those of you who are thinking "So what", first off, you're just as uncultured as I am, and secondly that's a big difference to how many gators are meant to have.

"Alligators normally have 74-80 teeth so this is way below the normal amount," ITehJelleh adds. Gators do also go through something called continuous replacement, which sees them constantly lose and regrow teeth, they can apparently go through 2,000 to 3,000 teeth in a lifetime. So maybe this gator is just having a rough one, or just a juvenile .

On the flip side, it could just be a silly mistake—but one that has rocked players to their core. "Unplayable," one fan jokes. "This is just going to be another Cyberpunk release." Others join in voicing their disappointment with Rockstar—"pre-order cancelled"—and who can blame them? Gators are sacred.

But how could Rockstar make such a simple mistake? Well, ITehJelleh thinks it could all be part of something bigger: "Could it potentially have a meaning?" Yeah, ok, I'll play ball. What if we're getting another trailer in 60 days, on August 17, or maybe there'll be 60 different dirt bikes to collect in-game. What if the game opens with you having to fight 60 gators? Not sure of any of that really sticks though, maybe it really was just a simple error. Anyways, I'm just going to stick with the moon for all my GTA theories.

It may sound impossible, but the wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 is almost over. After a couple of delays, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has reassured fans that GTA 6 will release on November 19 this year, and now we have the pre-order date to prove it.

Rockstar just randomly—hold on a second, let me check what moon phase we're in—yup, randomly announced that pre-orders for GTA 6 will start on June 25, which is just a week away. Everyone, try to keep your composure.

Alongside the pre-order announcement came the official cover art reveal. It's nothing particularly surprising, as it follows the same design we've seen before with multiple fluorescent images spliced onto the cover. It's almost a shot for shot recreation of Vice City's cover art, with a couple of images swapped around.

This time we've got our main protagonists, Jason Duval and Lucua Caminos, a speed boat, a sports car, a helicopter, a hot chick, and then a couple of dudes with guns and motorbikes. Oh, there's also gator, because Florida—I mean Leonida.

Then, if you look extra close at the tattoo under the woman's bikini strap you can see it reads "Vice Baby". This checks out as GTA 6 takes place in the fictional state of Leonida, which is based off of Florida, and will let players return to the sunny streets of Vice City, the fictional city which is based off of Miami.

But aside from nitpicking at the details, players just seem elated to have any new information thrown their way, which is understandable considering we haven't had anything major since GTA 6's second trailer which came out over a year ago now. But now all we have to do is wait one week for pre-orders to open and then 21 more weeks for the game to release—easy!

For reasons I can't quite explain—except to admit that San Andreas was very good—the entire Earth has become one big millenarian cult awaiting the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6, which will purge us of our sins and deliver us to apocatastasis. It will also make four hundred quintillion dollars.

No wonder, then, that its current November 2026 release date squats on the calendar like a big criminal troll, warding off any who come near. No studio wants to release in the vicinity of GTA 6, leading to a very lopsided 2026 release calendar in which every game has tried to squeeze itself into September. Well, every game but one.

"Maybe not *every* publisher," wrote Furyu Games in a post on X, responding to a Kotaku story titled "Sony’s State Of Play Showed That Every Publisher Is Terrified Of GTA 6". Furyu declared, boldly, like its upcoming roguelike Crymelight is due out November 5, two weeks prior to GTA 6's launch (and concurrent with Guy Fawkes Night; he would've been a fan). "Maybe we’re just not afraid enough".

Furyu has form for this sort of thing, as the studio itself notes: "Last year, [Furyu-published] Kemono Teatime launched on September 4... the same day as Hollow Knight: Silksong."

Which is, let's be absolutely clear here, very much a marketing manoeuvre. Being the plucky little studio that picks a David-and-Goliath fight with Rockstar is an arresting image, so arresting that Devolver Digital has made hay doing much the same thing—even moving the release date of an upcoming mystery game in order to make sure it releases on the exact same day as GTA 6.

But it's still pretty funny, if you ask me, and I suspect it's a good move for a smaller publisher whose games don't have GTA 6 levels of hype. Sure, releasing some big AAA thing the same month as "the largest game launch in history" won't do you any favours, but putting out a smaller game? Some of that GTA 6 aura might just rub off on you.

Someone has overdosed, so said the panicked man running down the street towards the infirmary. I follow, pushing through the red swing doors into the hospital reception area, and find a family huddled together in the adjacent waiting room. What happened, I ask. And I'm politely, but no less promptly, told to mind my own business.

They're right, of course. Because if this scenario were to unfold in real life, despite my best intentions, random strangers are indeed entitled to privacy. I should admire their manners in such a moment of distress, truth be told. Herein lies my first distinction that separates hyper-serious text-only Grand Theft Auto roleplay, and the fast-paced, voice-based servers I'm otherwise familiar with.

New world order

I've spent years cooking up off-the-wall roleplay encounters in the voice-based GTA 5 roleplay platform FiveM, and have revelled in the breakneck speed in which most of these encounters unfold. From robbing banks while posing as a journalist to running a nightclub as an active vampire, FiveM, in my opinion, is at its very best in its immediate experiences, where spontaneity and on-the-fly exchanges make and/or break each set-piece.

With speed comes variety—roleplayers definitely take themselves seriously in the throes of VOIP-only spaces, but if something goes awry or doesn't quite go to plan, the next tale is never far from the horizon. This is true of FiveM, alt:v, NoPixel, New Day, and the wealth of RP platforms whose servers tend towards all of the above, and while there definitely are players in it for the long haul, there is a strong element of pick-up-and-play to the majority of sessions I've ever experienced.

The opposite is true in text-only servers. I've long been intimidated by the seriousness of these spectrums, to the point where I've pretty much avoided them entirely. And while I've barely dipped my toes into the narrative-heavy scene at this stage, I've nevertheless been blown away by what I've seen so far. Stepping away from FiveM et al's action-oriented roleplay, what I've found has been more thoughtful, more precise and more longer-form; where stories gradually develop and actions have genuine consequences.

The hospital example above is but one pretty superficial example, but I've played in enough VOIP servers to confidently suggest the same scenario would have unfolded like a high-drama soap opera.

As a plumber who recently moved to Los Santos following the death of his family, I'm currently pursuing an honest life. The allure of the city's criminal underbelly is there bubbling away under the surface—this is GTA, after all—but my most enjoyable RP experience last week was installing a bathroom suite for a young student couple in Vinewood. It was a nice evening by the time I'd sealed the last fitting, so I decided to walk home. I chatted to a man busking on the edge of Union Square about the stock market. I went home and had an early night. It was lovely.

And so here I am, pausing the monotony of real life in the city of Glasgow to lose myself in the monotony of pretend life in the city of Los Santos. Perhaps it's an age thing. Perhaps it's getting older and realising that the unbridled chaos of vanilla GTA Online—where it's sometimes difficult to walk 10 paces without being sniped or stabbed or blown to pieces by a flying motorcycle equipped with homing missiles—is sometimes too much. Perhaps it's realising that the meme-inspiring, TikTok-fueling, fast-pace-favouring RP scene is fun but exhausting.

And perhaps it's realising that there's something endearing about being content just existing in a quieter slant on San Andreas—where today it's about fitting toilets, and in six months it could be about owning my own plumbing firm and treating someone else to the pleasure of working for me.

In GTA Online I have an arsenal of guns and umpteen illicit businesses. In FiveM I have an unhinged personality and a thousand faces. In GTA World I have a backstory and a civilian's dream.

I've written before about just how much I love Grand Theft Auto's radio stations. Rockstar has an incredible knack for musical curation, and there's nary been a track in those games that I haven't vibed with. Hell, I've spent most of my life as a raging emo in England and I absolutely loved the country-bumpkin-as-hell K-Rose back in San Andreas.

I've also got a huge soft spot for Non Stop Pop in Grand Theft Auto 5—Cara Delevingne's borderline robotic London accent cutting through nostalgic bangers from the '80s, '90s, and '00s like Amerie's 1 Thing and Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls, later introducing some more modern tracks like Lorde's Tennis Court and M83's Midnight City.

Every game in the series is always home to a huge spread of stations that cover just about every genre you could wish for, and it gives Rockstar so much room to play around with iconic tunes and more niche things you'd only otherwise hear from your mate-of-a-mate-of-a-mate-of-a-mate at a 4am after drinks in some stranger's diabolically tiny flat.

With Grand Theft Auto 6 set to take place in a modern-day Vice City, that gives the developer even greater liberty to go ham on which tracks it includes. We've got a whole Covid era of TikTok songs that feel like they'd fit right into the Florida-adjacent Leonida (but please no Dance Monkey, I beg of you), plus a wealth of untapped 80s and 90s tunes that would be fitting of this digital sunshine state.

We've got over a decade's worth of artists to pick from since Rockstar last added songs to Grand Theft Auto 5 who I think would be incredible for some late-night drives—PinkPanthress, Charlie XCX, Kaytranada, and Tame Impala come to mind as just a few who would absolutely bang in the new game. And my inner emo would love to see bands like Fontaines D.C., Don Broco, and Spiritbox appearing in Rockstar's oft-criminally underutilised modern rock stations.

But what about you? Are there some of your favourite artists who you think would fit Grand Theft Auto 6's world of Leonida perfectly? Or are there tracks you hope make it in just because they're funny, or would annoy a mate of yours? Do you want TikTok brainrot tracks? Please say no to that one.

Whoever or whatever you've got in mind, be sure to drop a comment and let us know the artists and tracks on your personal wishlist. After all, we're gonna be spending an awful lot of time in cars in that game—the songs better be good!

It's not that it's impossible to do some good deeds in Rockstar games like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. It's just that more often than not, you're on the other side of the law. Doing crimes. Getting chased. Fighting the cops. Being an upstanding citizen isn't really the aim of any of Rockstar's playable characters. (And, to be fair, most of Rockstar's law-enforcing "good guys" are just as terrible as the crooks.)

But in worlds built on crime and criminals, it can be fun to play from the other side of the handcuffs from time to time. Red Dead Redemption First Response (RDRFR) is a mod that lets you play as the law. Be the sheriff in a small town. Serve as marshall and hunt down outlaws. You can even be a copper in the booming city of St. Denis. It's similar to the mod for GTA 4 and 5 that let you fight crime as the police.

And conveniently, once installed, you can choose to activate the mod whenever you want in your singleplayer game. Just walk into the sheriff's office in any town (you'll see the star on your map showing you where) to begin your shift. Also inside the sheriff's office you'll see a wardrobe you can use (if you want) to change your clothes into the sheriff's uniform you like most, from the classic St. Denis cop uniform to a marshall's outfit to just normal cowboy clothes that have a shiny star pinned to the vest.

You can even change your character model, if you want to get into the roleplaying a bit more, and cycle through randomized lawmen until you get one you want. When you go off duty, your character will switch back to good old Arthur Morgan.

I decide to begin my law enforcement career in the tiny, dusty town of Tumbleweed, imagining I'm a brand new deputy with no experience. And if I do some good, I'll eventually promote myself to a nicer and bigger town. I walk into the jail, activate the mod using the ledger on the sheriff's desk, then visit the wardrobe to choose my lawman, finding a scruffy old coot with a handlebar moustache. Perfect! I look like the least-drunk of the town drunks, the guy a sheriff would swear in as a deputy simply because he was the best choice out of a bunch of terrible choices.

As I stroll around town, a citizen runs up to me to report a crime. That was quick! A horse has been stolen, and my first job is to recover it. Thus begins my career in law enforcement, which results in an entire day chasing one damn horse all over the map.

I'm not sure if it's the mod or if it's me, but the act of calming the horse, a common activity in RDR2, just isn't working. When I get anywhere near the horse, it bolts. I try riding my own horse after it, I try sneaking, I try walking slowly and calmly, I call to it, but the horse is so damn skittish I simply can't catch it. This isn't the sort of crime I'd pictured myself facing when I signed up. Chasing horse thieves down, sure. Simply following a runaway horse? No.

I eventually give up, go back to the jail, and go off duty. The horse, marked with a dot on my minimap, vanishes. Not a great first day on the job.

The next day is more promising. Another citizen runs up just as I go on duty, telling me there's a wanted killer in town. The map shows a search area, which covers almost the entire town, as well as a few small pips on my minimap indicating citizens who might have some information. I stroll around, ordering people to stop what they're doing and talk to me through a new interface added by the mod. Sometimes they'll give me information about what the fugitive looks like. Other times they'll give me a location. Sometimes they'll simply refuse to help (can't blame them, really) even if I threaten them.

But once I have two pieces of information about the fugitive, they're revealed on my map and I can chase them down.

I locate the first fugitive thanks to a woman standing in the town graveyard. Seems rude to interrogate a mourner, but the law doesn't sleep. She tips me off to a guy near the saloon. But as I creep around the back of the building, he comes down the steps and pops me right in the dome. I'm dead! My career as a lawman so far consists of failing to catch a horse and getting shot in the face.

After respawing, I take another shift, and use another feature of the mod: the ability to recruit a partner. I walk over to a fellow sheriff and tell him to follow me as we begin searching for another fugitive in town. This time I narrow down the culprit's location to the graveyard, and wouldn't you know it? It's the same woman who gave me the tip about yesterday's fugitive. She opens fire when we get close, so I sprint around the corner and get out my lasso, determined to make my first arrest.

I nab her with my rope but my partner didn't get the memo. He keeps shooting, killing her before I can tie her up.

Cloaked in failure, and feeling Tumbleweed is a bit too small to fight crime when there's only a handful of people who can turn out to secretly be villains, I head to Blackwater, more of a proper town. Maybe here I'll get a little more action and a chance to actually arrest someone properly.

The fates aren't with me, however. A woman runs into the sheriff's office to report a fugitive, and I start interrogating the locals for clues. One fella won't cooperate, but two more give me the perp's appearance and location. Which turns out to be right across the street from where I'm standing, and he immediately opens fire.

I ready my lasso to arrest him, but some enterprising citizen takes out a gun and shoots the suspect in the head.

Sheesh! With citizens as trigger-happy as that, does the town even need an extra sheriff?

Mod Jobs

Other professions I’d like to see in Red Dead Redemption 2 mods

The next crime is a group of armed outlaws, who strangely spawn in the water and slowly swim to shore while I patiently wait for them with my rifle. It's a decent gunfight, and I manage to lasso the final outlaw and ride him back into town on my horse. I throw him in a jail cell, but having failed to frisk him, he pulls out a knife and stabs me.

I want to be very clear that my intent was to punch him. And I do punch him! Unfortunately, I am also holding a knife, so my punch kills him. Whoops. I lock the cell door and slink away, yet another arrest tarnished.

Okay, enough small town blues. It's time for the big city. St. Denis. I have in no way earned my promotion, but I'm taking it anyway. And here, things finally begin going my way. Another fugitive investigation leads me to find the suspect calming eating dinner in the saloon, and me and my partner get to approach his table with our guns drawn, tell him to put his hands up, frisk him for weapons, then tie him up and call for backup (by blowing my police whistle) to take him away on their horse.

It's like an episode of Law and Order, except the cops on that show use handcuffs instead of lassos and usually don't take suspects away on horseback. But most importantly, I've finally arrested someone and there wasn't any bloodshed!

Not all suspects go so quietly, and there are still a few shootouts that day. But one crook leads me on a non-violent chase through the city—he's not shooting but he's not surrendering, either—letting me sprint down the sidewalks knocking people out of my way until I finally put a single round in his leg, and then tie him up. Fun!

The shootouts in St Denis are usually exciting, too. With so many (relatively) tall buildings, narrow alleyways, and gated areas, the crooks can appear on rooftops, behind fences, and inside buildings. It's fun racing through the city while my partner follows, taking cover, and trading hot lead with the outlaws because you never know exactly where they'll appear. I'm killed once, my partner is killed once, and a few times we wind up with wounds but still come out ahead.

So if you try RDRFR yourself, I'd definitely suggest the St. Denis beat. It just works much better there than in the smaller, scruffier towns. Just stop by the sheriff's office and go on duty for a few hours.

And when you're done, you can go right back to being the outlaw in the equation.

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive (which owns Rockstar, as well as several other companies) has a pretty middling view on AI. He's not purely against it (of course not, he's a CEO), but he's at least been relatively realistic about not only its potential, but also what its adoption will mean for the company as a whole.

Those are comments echoed in an investors meeting (shared here by YouTuber FunThere) wherein Zelnick commented on a hypothetical put forward by another tech bigwig that AI would let a team of three people make a GTA. Zelnick takes issue with the idea that "therefore they will make a hit that's as big as GTA, and there's zero evidence for that."

He continues: "Making hits seems to get harder and harder and harder as entertainment industries mature, we do not have a monopoly on hit creation … Arrogance is the enemy of continued success. I don't believe for a minute that technological advances give someone else an edge or give us an edge.

"It's just the toolset, it's available to everyone. The key thing is that all of this is gonna be totally commoditised. Show me one AI company—just one—who's offering their services or products to companies on an exclusive basis. They don't exist. So when that executive has that button to push, I'll have the same damn button."

Zelnick then gives certain studios the side-eye: "The folks at Rockstar seem to be able to make these massive hits, and lots of other people have tried. Lots and lots including former Rockstar employees—and so far they haven't been able to do it."

He doesn't mention it by name, but it's hard to imagine a higher-profile, recent example of what he's talking about that isn't MindsEye. Here we have a game put together by former Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies' studio, which has spent the past few months trying to convince itself and the public that internal saboteurs are responsible for the fact its first proper game isn't good.

Also by making a DLC where they vaguepost about the supposed saboteurs which, wouldn't you know it, also kinda sucks. Either way, that's gotta sting.

Still, that's not a reason to grow complacent: "Doesn't mean they can't in the future, by the way, we're always running scared. It won't be technology that changes the game. That won't be the change. What'll change is that some extraordinarily creative individual or individuals are gonna show up and do something astonishing.

"Our goal is to get those people to work within the Take-Two system, if we fail to do that? We fail. If we continue to be the home of creativity, the company that welcomes and encourages and supports and finances the best talent in the business, then the rest will take care of itself."

Grand Theft Auto 6 developer Rockstar fired 31 employees in October 2025, allegedly—according to the terminated employees—because they were trying to form a union. Rockstar denied those allegations, however, and said the employees were terminated because they revealed "specific game features from upcoming and unannounced titles" in "a public forum."

Legal action was filed against Rockstar over the firings, and that matter is still working its way through the system. But one outcome has been reached: Rockstar workers have formed a union.

The Rockstar Game Workers Union (via Game Developer) is a part of the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain, the union that's been leading the effort against Rockstar on behalf of the employees who were fired in 2025. The union was announced with a play on gamers' longstanding desire for the next Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer: "The video GTA fans have been waiting for."

GTA fans have been on the edge of their seats at the rumours a new video is about to drop…Well the wait is over.We present: the public launch of the Rockstar IWGB Game Workers Union.Our platform, to tell our story.youtu.be/iLOq_6rOpoM

— @rsgworkersunion.bsky.social (@rsgworkersunion.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-05-28T22:29:04.668Z

Instead of a videogame trailer, though, the video recaps the events of the past seven months, from the dismissal of 31 employees last year through protests at Rockstar offices, a commitment from the UK government to investigate the matter, and the legal action filed by the IWGB. And, the union says, rather than impeding unionization efforts, Rockstar's actions only catalyzed them.

"We are now bigger and stronger than ever with more and more workers joining from across every one of Rockstar's sites in Edinburgh, London, Leeds, Lincoln, and Dundee," the narrator states. "Together, we are organizing around the things we want to change, starting with pay transparency, flexible working, and an end to crunch."

The union is also raising funds to pay for its legal case against Rockstar: "We're determined to win justice for the 31 fired workers and to show studios like Rockstar that they cannot get away with this disgusting treatment of the people whose talent, skill, and creativity are what capture their audiences and generate their billions."

Rockstar does indeed expect to earn billions on Grand Theft Auto 6: Parent company Take-Two Interactive said last week that it expects revenues for its 2027 fiscal year to surpass $8 billion, a year-over-year increase of more than $1 billion powered by the console release of GTA 6 on November 19. We're still waiting for official word on a PC version.

I've reached out to Rockstar for comment on the new union and will update after I receive a reply.

Grand Theft Auto 6's impending arrival has left other developers worried about how their own game will fare in the face of one of the most anticipated launches of all time. It looks like Remedy's new CEO, Jean-Charles Gaudechon, isn't one of them.

Chatting to The Game Business, Gaudechon is pretty sanguine about the whole thing, despite it serving as steep competition for any action game launching in 2026, including Control Resonant.

“It’s a year, I believe, that’s going to raise the tide,” Gaudechon says. “It’s going to put the spotlight even more on games than maybe in past years. Hopefully [GTA] will sell consoles. And raise the tide for all the players out there."

It's an optimistic perspective, but also a pretty practical one. While, yes, GTA 6 is going to be a massive launch, sucking all the oxygen out of the room, it's still just one game. Even with GTA Online, most players will finish the campaign and then be looking for new things.

I've pretty much shelved my PS5, but since that's going to be the only way I'll be able to play GTA 6, since the PC version hasn't even been announced yet, I'll be dusting off the console. Maybe a lot of you will be, as well. Which might also inspire you to keep playing on it, maybe picking up Control Resonant.

I suspect it's also going to attract folk who skipped this console generation initially. And they might stick around after.

“[For us], it’s less about trying to make your money back in a few days," Gaudechon says. "Now you’ve got multiple ways to have a longer tail. It’s going to be fun. You can expect quality from us. You can expect a voice that will cut through the noise. Expect us to be as loud as we can and hopefully pique people’s interest."

In the interview, Gaudechon also discussed the reaction to his appointment in February—there were concerns about his time at EA working on live service games and sports betting platforms—and the need to make cross-media deals to build up Remedy's franchises like Alan Wake and Control.

The Rage:MP multiplayer platform for Grand Theft Auto 5 says it will begin a "structured shutdown" after receiving a cease-and-desist order from GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive.

The news of the looming closure was shared by the admin team in the Rage:MP forums (via Dextero): "Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive have made it clear that FiveM is the only authorized platform for GTA 5 multiplayer modding, as defined in their Platform License Agreement (PLA). In accordance with that policy, and at Take-Two's request, Rage:MP will begin a structured shutdown process. We are asking all server owners to wind down their operations and migrate to FiveM."

FiveM was the big daddy of multiplayer customization modding platforms for Grand Theft Auto 5, enabling players to engage with the game in ways that Rockstar probably didn't envision—like trying to start a GTA Online fight club and ending up with a shirtless gang called The Friendly Boys, for instance, or becoming a big game trophy hunter and then getting murdered in the forest by a psycho who takes issue with your hobbies. (I guess that boy wasn't so friendly after all.)

Rockstar put considerable effort into banning FiveM for violating its policies as "an unauthorized alternate multiplayer service that contains code designed to facilitate piracy," but eventually (possibly after it noticed all the money trucks that kept rolling by) it relented and bought the Cfe.rx team that makes it instead. In 2025, Rockstar announced Nopixel V, "the next evolution of the GTA 5 Roleplay experience," and now, inevitably, it's also the only permissible GTA 5 roleplay experience.

Rage:MP admins said as a result of Take-Two's request, public access to its server toolkit has been discontinued and no new community servers will be accepted; current owners of Rage:MP servers are encouraged to migrate to FiveM as soon as possible. On June 1, the Rage:MP public server listing will be shut down, and on August 31, everything else goes away: The game client and server toolkit will no longer be available or supported, and all backend infrastructure will be shut down.

"We know this is tough news for everyone—both developers and players," the team wrote in their farewell message. "As FiveM is now Rockstar Games' official platform for modding-based experiences, we've done our best to give you extra time to move your servers to their new home, and we will continue to do everything we can to make the switch over as smooth as possible.

"All of us have put a huge amount of time and energy into building Rage:MP. Thank you for being part of this journey and for everything you've done to help multiplayer grow. Rage:MP was always defined more by the community than by the codebase."

It is rare that I sit down and write one of these 'CEO has spoken' articles with a charitable mind, mostly because I have this irritating habit of punching up, but also because they are, typically, a little divorced from reality. Like the head of Amazon Games saying videogames don't really have voice acting, or Microsoft's Satya Nadella trying to retroactively justify AI for the nth time.

Which is why I have to come forward and say that Take-Two CEO, Strauss Zelnick, has been extremely reasonable in a recent interview with IGN. When asked whether or not Red Dead Online is considered a missed opportunity—and it has, admittedly, been less of a breadwinner for the publisher than GTA Online—he had this to say:

"So let me be clear. There is literally nothing about Red Dead selling 85 million units that could signal a missed opportunity. And Red Dead Online has been immensely successful and long lasting."

Furthermore, Zelnick adds, even if GTA Online didn't exist, producing one of the other most successful open-world videogame franchises out there would also be absolutely fine: "I think if we didn't have Grand Theft Auto here at our company, then people would just talk about the fact that we have this massive franchise in Red Dead.

"I actually personally think Red Dead is just amazing and I love engaging with it. And I think the reason it continues to sell is that it's just spectacular entertainment. It's beautiful and it feels very up to date despite the fact that it's not a new title."

As to whether or not Red Dead Online is a little underserved from a player perspective, well—that's another thing entirely. I'm not partial to Rockstar's online games myself, but the PC Gaming Show's own Joe Donelly noted last year that "despite its scope to match the ambition of GTA Online once upon a time, RDO instead persists in the lurching shadow of its modern day cousin."

But that's a bit different from the business-related implication that Red Dead Online is somehow a missed opportunity. I'd argue selling 85 million copies of anything is good enough, even if you never updated its online component ever again.

And while I've got sympathies for RDO's doubtless passionate playerbase, I'm not sure every game with an online slice needs to be a perpetually-maintained live service mill. I even kind of miss the day where superfluous multiplayer modes would come and go—but hey, I'm a games journalist, and my live service fatigue doesn't speak for cowboys, cowgirls, and horse girls everywhere.

Do you remember where you were just over a year ago, on May 6, 2025? That's when Rockstar released its second trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 and also confirmed its updated release date: May 26, 2026. Neither can I, but I do know I was excited as all hell alongside every other gamer, and that's what makes today so painful.

A few months went by before Rockstar made the announcement that the floodgates to Leonida wouldn't open on May 26, instead delaying it for a second time to November 19, 2026, to "allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve."

It's never a bad idea to give developers more time to polish a game, and as Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick previously said: "we've never regretted [a delay] in retrospect." But that doesn't mean the delay didn't leave a mark. Something that plenty of fans have reflected on, especially today.

If you dare venture over to GTA 6's subreddit you'll find a bevy of despairing fans, all mourning what could have been had Rockstar not delayed GTA 6 for the second time. People are reposting Rockstar's initial post about the May 26 release date, grasping at a reality that's no longer there.

There's a mountain of depressing videos. We've got Tobey Maguire's breakdown in Pawn Sacrifice, Al Pacino screaming his lungs out, and an obligatory James Gandolfini scene from The Sopranos.

Some dude even got all dressed up in their Sunday best and started queuing outside of GameStop: "I'm waiting in front of GameStop until it opens because they said that the game comes out today but I'm the only one here. I don't get it. I thought that everyone was excited for this game."

"Today was supposed to be the day for us all to rejoice," another player says. "Let's just pray there's no more delays." Well the good news is there won't be any more delays, that is if Zelnick is to be believed (I'd say that's a safe bet). And while I'm not sure I believe all the theorists claiming that Rockstar'll give fans some more scraps to chew on because today is such a special day, at least we only have to wait 176 days until its release—oh god, that's a long time.

Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive has been adamant that the November 19 release date for Grand Theft Auto 6 is on track, but doubts have lingered: The game has already been delayed twice, after all. But at this point it looks solid: With just six months to go, Take-Two reaffirmed the date in today's FY2026 financial report, and said it expects to make a lot—and let me emphasize, a lot—of money on it.

"We believe fiscal 2027 will establish new record levels of operating performance driven by the November 19th launch of Grand Theft Auto 6, along with strong execution across our portfolio," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said. "We expect to sustain this higher level of scale, generate strong cash flows, and deliver long-term shareholder value as we release our robust development pipeline, continue to optimize our live services and capitalize on new business opportunities."

Take-Two does indeed have a lot of very valuable games and properties to its name (come on, BioShock), but GTA is the unrivalled money machine. Consider: Take-Two reported $6.72 billion in revenues for its 2026 fiscal year, exceeding the high end of its guidance range—basically, what it expected to make in the year. Take-Two's guidance for the 2027 fiscal, though, is $8-$8.2 billion, a year-over-year hike of more than $1 billion.

"FY27 is poised to be a breakout year for Take-Two, led by the November 19th release of Grand Theft Auto 6—arguably, the most anticipated entertainment property of all time, and we are excited that Rockstar Games will start their marketing campaign this summer," Take-Two said.

Which makes for an easy segue into the "no news" part of the report: No trailer 3 today, no information on price, and the biggest 'no' of all, no confirmation of GTA 6 on PC.

Does any of that matter? If you're reading this, it's very likely you've already made up your mind about whether you're going to buy GTA 6 (you are), whether you care how much it costs (you don't), and whether you're cranky about this shoddy treatment of PC gamers because you're going to buy it on console on day one anyway (I remain cranky, but you do you). But as a matter of simply wanting to know what the hell is going on? Yeah, I think we're all pretty damn eager for that.

Summer, for the record, starts on June 21. I don't expect Take-Two is going to kick GTA 6 marketing off on that particular day just because Strauss Zelnick said "summer," but I'll be watching, just in case.

Last week, Best Buy sent emails to affiliates that teased a May 18 kick-off for Grand Theft Auto 6 preorders. The emails were presumably sent in error, but that didn't necessarily mean that the date was wrong: If GTA 6 is on target for its November 19 console release date, it wouldn't be shocking for pre-orders to start soon.

Alas, it is May 18 and no Grand Theft Auto 6 preorder button has appeared, and no new trailer has dropped, which some assumed would happen alongside the expected reveal of the price and preorder bonuses.

The day isn't over, but if it were going to happen today, it probably would've by now, I'm sorry to say. We'll update this article if that changes.

Over on the GTA 6 subreddit, users are passing around the "Fell For It Again Award" as expectations have once again been dashed.

I think we probably will get a preorder announcement, or at least a new trailer, relatively soon. Last year's trailer came in May, and it'd be typical of Rockstar to preempt Summer Game Fest with big news rather than participate directly. SGF kicks off on June 5.