GTA VI News Timeline
Every official beat, dated and sourced — and a leak watch for the viral claims, each with a verdict instead of a headline. Updated as Rockstar's campaign ramps toward launch.
- Trailer 3 — unannounced. Rockstar's release pattern and Take-Two's August 7 earnings call make late July–mid August the popular expectation. That's a reading of history, not an announcement — we'll update the hour anything drops.
- Digital preload — expected around November 12.
- Launch — Thursday, November 19, 2026 on PS5 & Xbox Series X|S.
Official timeline
- July 17, 2026
Zelnick: no more delays expected
A shareholder letter filed July 17 reaffirms November 19, 2026, with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick signalling no further moves. Pre-orders had already topped PlayStation charts in 50+ countries.
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June 25, 2026Pre-orders open: editions, price and a 60-screenshot drop
Standard $79.99, Ultimate $99.99, and the Vintage Vice City Pack for any pre-order before launch. The accompanying media wave — 60+ screenshots naming customization shops, garages and edition vehicles — was the biggest official gameplay disclosure since Trailer 2. All of it is folded into our databases.
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June 18, 2026Official cover art + pre-order date
An animated reveal of the cover — Jason and Lucia over a collage of Vice City vignettes — plus the announcement that pre-orders open June 25. New artwork and wallpapers landed on the official site the same day.
- May 2026
Take-Two: the date holds
Fiscal-year earnings reiterate GTA VI is firmly on track for November 19 — the first of several public reassurances through the summer.
- November 6, 2025
Moved to November 19, 2026
The second and final date move. Rockstar: the extra months "allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve."
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May 6, 2025Trailer 2 + the first delay
Days after the date moved from fall 2025 to May 26, 2026, Rockstar dropped the second cinematic trailer alongside ~70 screenshots and the official site's People & Places pages — the biggest single reveal to date.
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December 4, 2023Trailer 1 — Vice City revealed
Lucia, Jason and a modern-day Vice City, watched more than 90 million times in its first 24 hours. The 2025 window it announced would later move twice.
- September 19, 2022
The September 2022 breach
About 90 clips of an early development build hit the internet; Rockstar confirmed the intrusion days later. It remains the only verified gameplay footage in existence — nearly every 'leaked gameplay' clip since traces back to these files, or to fakes.
Leak watch — the viral stuff, checked
No verified gameplay has surfaced since the 2022 breach: the viral "gameplay leaks" of 2025–26 have checked out as AI clips, GTA V mods, recycled breach material or fabrications. The handful below actually warranted a look.
- June 2026RumoredScreenRant ↗
The 'pre-Trailer-3' diner clip
A clip of Lucia robbing a diner did the rounds as leaked Trailer 3 footage. It's resurfaced early-alpha material from the 2022 breach family — nothing new, and nothing that reflects the final game.
- November 2025ReportedPC Gamer ↗
An ex-animator's reel shows a bike-share system
A former Rockstar animator's public demo reel briefly included authentic work-in-progress clips: a character renting and docking a 'LomBike' share bike. A portfolio slip rather than a leak — but it's the only post-2022 footage that checks out, and it points at a bike-share system existing in development.
- September 2025ReportedGameSpot ↗
Take-Two's in-game domains surface
Tracker Tez2 spotted domains registered under Take-Two nameservers — what-up.app, leonidagov.org, a rideshare app — reading like GTA VI's in-game internet. Take-Two scrubbed the records within a day. Suggestive of in-game apps and websites; officially, nothing.
- January 2025RumoredPush Square ↗
The office-monitor Lucia images
A Redditor posted a photo of an early build on a Rockstar San Diego office monitor — Lucia by shipping containers — with metadata pointing at mid-2021. Widely considered genuine, never confirmed, and it revealed nothing about the finished game.
For features by tier, see the features tracker; for story and mission intel, the missions page; for the cast, the characters page.
We're filling in stats, the full map and completion tracking as data drops. Get one email when GTA VI launches and the full freemode toolset goes live with real stats and maps.