In case you’ve been living under a rock, Rockstar Games unveiled the first trailer for GTA VI today. The trailer provides us our first glimpse at the next installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, confirming Vice City as the location and Lucia as one of the protagonists. Alongside the trailer reveal, Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive published a press release that gives us some more details about the game, including the platforms that it will arrive on.
According to Take-Two, Grand Theft Auto VI is set to release on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms in 2025. There’s no mention of PC or the last-gen consoles PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Other systems such as Nintendo’s Switch are also not cited.
In case you’re worried whether Rockstar would go the Red Dead Redemption route and keep VI console-exclusive, worry not. Since that game, pretty much all core open-world titles from Rockstar have eventually made their way to the PC. This includes Grand Theft Auto V which arrived on the PC in March 2015 after releasing for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on September 2023. It also includes Red Dead Redemption 2 which arrived on the PC in November 2019 after making its way to consoles in October 2018. Judging by Rockstar’s pattern and the history of the Grand Theft Auto series, a PC release is not just likely, it’s inevitable. It’s definitely not happening at launch though.
What’s also interesting is Rockstar eschewing last-gen consoles. While the PS4 and Xbox One are fairly capable machines, their non-SSD hard drives would simply be unable to handle the insane loading speeds that would be needed to keep the busy Vice City afloat with dense traffic all around. As for Nintendo’s Switch, I suspect it’ll simply be incapable of running the game in any form whatsoever, unless Rockstar specifically works on a port which will ultimately reduce the game to a last-gen GTA lookalike.
We’ve only just seen the new consoles launch, but I also suspect GTA VI will be the game that makes the jump to the next generation of consoles i.e. the PlayStation 6 and Xbox Next, whenever that happens.
Alongside the confirmation of and speculation on platforms, we also learned some more details about the location of Grand Theft Auto VI. More specifically, it’ll be set in a state named Leonida, Rockstar’s version of Florida. As the entertainment giant describes it, Leonida will be “home to the neon-soaked streets of Vice City and beyond” and offer ” in “the biggest, most immersive evolution of the Grand Theft Auto series yet.”
Rockstar Games founder Sam Houser had this to say about the game:
Grand Theft Auto VI continues our efforts to push the limits of what’s possible in highly immersive, story-driven open-world experiences. We’re thrilled to be able to share this new vision with players everywhere.
Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S in 2025. If history and the trailer are any indication, Rockstar is going to have a hard time meeting that date without any delays (which explains the broad release window).
