GTA 6 is coming this year – here’s all we know about Rockstar’s latest epic

By Jesse Lennox, Sam Hill and Lloyd Coombes Updated January 18, 2026

Barring any further release date delays, GTA 6 will launch more than 13 years after GTA 5 when it arrives in 2026. That’s a long gap without a new Grand Theft Auto game (although we’d argue Red Dead Redemption 2 was definitely welcome in the interim).

Still, while we’ve had plenty of fresh content for Grand Theft Auto Online since 2013, Grand Theft Auto 6 is on everyone’s minds now – not least because it’s been delayed multiple times and already been embroiled in controversy over Rockstar’s dismissal of developers working on it.

It’s undeniably the most anticipated upcoming PlayStation 5 game, upcoming Xbox Series X game, and when the inevitable PC port arrives, the biggest upcoming PC game, too, and will probably end up being the story of the year if it’s not moved into 2027.

Here’s all we know about Rockstar’s latest crime epic, including the (as of right now) confirmed release date.

For almost two years, GTA 6 was set to arrive sometime in the fall of 2025, but in May 2025, we learned that was no longer true. Rockstar released an official statement that begins with the news that “Grand Theft Auto VI is now set to release on May 26, 2026.”

That was followed by another delay in November 2025, with the game now being pushed to November 19, 2026. In its statement, Rockstar cited a need for “additional months to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve.”

A report from Insider Gaming suggests that Rockstar may have granted one terminally ill fan a chance to play Grand Theft Auto 6 before it was finished.

The GTA 6 trailer was announced to be released on December 5, 2023, but was dropped a day early after a leaked version found its way online. Regardless, we now have our first look at the world and characters.

The protagonists of GTA 6 will be a pair rather than a single character or trio like past games. First is Lucia, who appears to have some criminal background based on her appearing in a prison uniform in the trailer. The other lead is Jason, her partner and lover on the outside.

Thanks to descriptions on the official Grand Theft Auto 6 website, we can get a better idea of who our main characters are. Jason is described as more easy-going and not as eager to be in the life of crime, but was raised in that culture. After leaving the army in his teens, he became a drug runner. Until he met Lucia.

Lucia Caminos was raised to be a fighter — literally. After getting sent to a penitentiary for fighting, she got out and started to be more discerning about how she earned money for her mom. At least she hopes to be smarter about it to the point she doesn’t get caught again.

Perhaps the most important part of any GTA game is the setting, and for GTA 6, Rockstar is bringing us back to Vice City. Of course, this time we’ll be seeing it in the modern day instead of the late 1980s like before. The trailer shows a wide range of environments, from beaches and bustling city streets to suburbs and swamps.

Trailer 2 is much more character-focused and probably shows us a good deal of scenes from the early hours of the game as Jason does some errands around the city before picking Lucia up from prison. From there, we get a taste of the city, its people, and a few characters that will likely play bigger roles in the story.

Cal Hampton is one such character. Billed as a friend of Jason, he is something of a conspiracy nut who spends his free time listening to Coast Guard radio comms. Bobbi Ike is a mutual friend of Cal and Jason, who is a local legend around Vice City for managing to go from underground crime lord to building a by-the-books real estate empire, strip club owner, and record label. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s completely left his life of crime behind.

One of Bobbi’s rising stars in the music scene is Dre’quan Priest. He worked on the streets selling drugs only to make ends meet until he could realize his dream of breaking into music.

The Real Dimez, Bae-Luxe, and Roxy are a pair of viral stars who’ve been inseparable since high school. They managed to pivot their days scamming drug dealers into a lucrative social media career.

One of the most interesting characters we’re looking forward to meeting is Raul Bautista. He’s a professional criminal who has knocked over a number of banks in his day and is always looking for the next big score.

Another potential ally is the old and experienced Brian Heder. He was a smuggler back in the day and still dabbles with moving product via his boatyard, but isn’t interested in getting his own hands dirty anymore.

Despite just getting out of prison, it isn’t long before Lucia and Jason are back in the life of crime. We see them performing armed robberies, engaging in shootouts, car chases, and even fistfights on airplanes. As expected, nothing seems to be off the table in terms of spectacle.

The trailer itself keeps the plot hidden, but we do know that the main thrust of the game will be how an apparently simple job ends up with Jason and Lucia getting wrapped up in a massive conspiracy that covers the entire state of Leonida.

GTA 6 is only officially confirmed to be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S at launch. While we can safely say this game won’t come to last-generation consoles or the Switch, it not being on PC is the same playbook as GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

GTA 5 did take two years to come to PC, but Red Dead Redemption 2 arrived just over a year later. Will it ever come to Switch 2, though? Take-Two has committed to the platform already, so here’s hoping we can take GTA 6 on the go one day.

The trailer didn’t show any real gameplay for GTA 6 and instead was all cinematic. Still, based on the gameplay since GTA 3 shifted the franchise to 3D visuals, we’ve got a pretty good idea of how it’ll play.

Just to get it out of the way, yes, you can rest assured knowing that GTA 6 will feature plenty of shooting, driving, and criminal activities. The trailer showed off robberies, high-speed chases, and plenty of partying. Beyond that, however, we mainly have to speculate or go off of very old leaks. We do think that GTA 6 will continue the trend of allowing players to swap between first- and third-person perspectives. This was added to GTA 5 and included at launch for Red Dead Redemption 2.

If the trailer is any indication, the number of characters and action on-screen at any time means the world will be more densely packed than ever. Each NPC looks unique and appears very much “alive” while interacting with the world. Aside from shooting and running them over, we hope to see a lot more ways to interact with regular NPCs.

In a world that big, expect tons of side activities, minigames, and other distractions to discover and waste away hours on. Each title has upped the ante in terms of extras, and we don’t think GTA 6 will fall short here.

According to a former Rockstar developer, Mike York, speaking on Kiwi Talkz, we shouldn’t expect GTA 6 to run at 60 FPS on consoles, even the PS5 Pro. When asked what framerate he thinks the game will target, he stated that “I don’t know if they’ll be able to pull off 60fps. I don’t think so. I think they’re gonna be shooting for 30fps – and a locked 30fps, meaning it never dips below that. They’re gonna try to optimize as much as they can to where it never goes below 30. But it can be bumped up to 40, 41, 52, whatever, and I bet you, like, later, once it’s on PC, it’ll probably get super optimized and changed and new graphics cards that come out ,and you’ll be able to run it at 60fps probably at that time.”

Talking about the PS5 specifically, York said, “I don’t think [the] initial release will come out at 60fps unless it’s getting those 60fps by [using] an AI upscaler thing like the PlayStation is doing, unless something is coming in and helping it get those 60fps,” York explains. “I don’t think it’ll get the 60fps raw out the gate on a base console. PS5, for instance. Maybe PS5 Pro, or whatever, but I still don’t think so.”

Now, while York did work at Rockstar, he hasn’t been with the company since 2017, so likely isn’t familiar with the current state of the game or what the team is aiming for.

The second trailer appears to be all cutscenes, but hints at some mechanics. The obvious ones, like driving and shooting, are all here, but there could be a more developed melee system from the footage we see of Lucia kickboxing.

Setpieces will also be back and bigger than ever. One in particular shows a car dragging a crate or safe that looks ripped right out of a Fast and Furious film.

We got a nice list of some locations GTA 6 will let us explore, including:

We’re sure there will be plenty more locations and points of interest to discover as we explore for ourselves.

Arguably, the most prominent change that came with GTA V was the implementation of GTA Online. This mode became the backbone of the game, roping in millions of players (and dollars) for a shared experience. The base game is excellent, but GTA Online is what has kept GTA V relevant nearly a decade after launch.

The point is that we’ll almost certainly get some sort of multiplayer functionality with GTA 6. Whether that means the entire game is online only or if there’s a dedicated multiplayer mode like the previous installment remains to be seen — but we can almost guarantee it will have an online mode.

Considering just how successful GTA Online became, it’s unlikely Rockstar will drop multiplayer functionality from the next installment.

Oddly enough, GTA 6’s version of GTA Online apparently won’t include dedicated servers. This comes by way of insider Tez, who said: “Take-Two rejected a proposal for dedicated servers a few years ago. They considered it cost-prohibitive for them.”

The real big question is if this new GTA Online will be available at launch or be a staggered release. The first version came out almost a month after GTA 5, and Red Dead Online took even longer, at almost seven months. We don’t expect it to be nearly that long for GTA 6, but Rockstar may want to give players a few weeks to play the main game before tempting them with the online mode. And it would also be like a second launch to get back in the headlines.

One rumor spotted on a GTA forum by a known leaker named Tez2 suggests that GTA Online will be a separate purchase from the base game. They claim that “GTA 6 will be the first game where online is sold separately at launch, while story mode will be part of the full package that covers both. They will have to factor the online standalone price into the total cost. What portion of the base price will be the online’s price? And what would be the story mode upgrade price for those who’ve bought the online standalone?”

This should be taken with a massive grain of salt since the leaker doesn’t make any statements about where they are getting this information from, but it is something that Rockstar may consider due to the popularity of GTA Online.

You can already preorder GTA 6 on the PlayStation and Xbox storefronts, if you’re super keen to be one of the first in line.