GTA 6 followers have gone into overdrive — as they’ve finished so many instances lately amid the watch for Trailer 3 — after reviews emerged on-line that Finest Purchase had doubtlessly leaked the sport’s pre-order date.
We’ve been right here earlier than, many instances. Some followers really consider in a Trailer 3 launch date prediction that got here from somebody who charted the planetary positions for each single Rockstar Video games trailer launched since 2007.
Now, we have now a rumor across the GTA 6 pre-order date. For another recreation, this wouldn’t essentially be huge information, nor would there be excessive curiosity in a leak. However that is GTA 6. It’s maybe essentially the most anticipated recreation of all time, and appears set to change into the most important leisure launch in historical past. The date pre-orders go reside will probably crash web sites.
And so, we come to a YouTuber known as Frogboyx1gaming, who, throughout a reside stream, appeared to obtain an e-mail from Finest Purchase to his Finest Purchase affiliate account signalling a pre-order marketing campaign for GTA 6 that might run from Could 18-21. If true, that might counsel GTA 6 pre-orders go reside on Could 18, and if that is true, you’d think about GTA 6 Trailer 3 is not distant. Maybe it is coming as we speak!
There’s already been an enormous quantity of fuss over the legitimacy of this e-mail. Actually, Frogboyx1gaming seems shocked to have acquired it throughout the livestream, and has been open in sharing photos and images to again up the declare. There’s all kinds of debate about varied elements of the e-mail, from the outline of GTA 6 itself (versus the complete spelling, Grand Theft Auto VI), to the thought it will be despatched within the first place. For what it’s value, IGN has requested Finest Purchase for remark.
🚨BREAKING: GTA VI Pre-Orders (Bodily) have leaked on-line!
👨💻Evidently Finest-Purchase associates have been receiving this e-mail. The marketing campaign is about to be operating subsequent week from Could 18th-Twenty first.
📱Credit score: @Frogboyx1Gaming pic.twitter.com/eETF1Tuepx
— Mission Vice (@project_vice) Could 14, 2026
True or not, that is yet one more indication of the extraordinary scrutiny on GTA 6, Rockstar Video games, and just about something even tangentially associated to the sport’s growth. I’ve even seen followers observe how busy it’s at espresso retailers native to Rockstar North’s workplace in Scotland, in some bizarre online game model of the Pentagon pizza idea.
None of this intense involvement with GTA 6 is especially wholesome (GTA 6 Trailer 3 will come out ultimately!), however it’s fuelled by the massive hole between trailer drops and even primary gameplay data followers have needed to sit via to date. It’s been over a 12 months since Trailer 2 got here out. Trailer 1 got here out three years in the past, in 2023. The drip-feed of GTA 6 information has been stretched to breaking level, as, it appears, have followers.
Strauss Zelnick, boss of rockstar father or mother firm Take-Two, has mentioned GTA 6 advertising and marketing will kick into gear in the summertime, forward of the deliberate November launch date. So extra is coming. When, precisely? We’ll simply have to attend and see.
Earlier this month, Enterprise Insider reported that Take-Two is estimated to have spent $1-1.5 billion to date on GTA 6. In an interview, Zelnick wouldn’t say how a lot precisely, however did admit “it was costly.” To place GTA 6 into context, many of the triple-A online game budgets that make headlines achieve this for being within the lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} vary. Bungie’s lately launched extraction shooter reportedly had a price range of over $250 million, for instance. Harmony’s preliminary growth deal was round $200 million, based on a report by Kotaku. In 2023, new paperwork submitted as a part of the Xbox Federal Commerce Fee case by chance revealed The Final of Us: Half II and Horizon Forbidden West every value greater than $200 million to develop. Final 12 months, the astronomical growth budgets of the Name of Responsibility video games have been revealed for the primary time after a courtroom doc confirmed Activision pumped $700 million into Black Ops Chilly Battle alone, though that was over the shooter’s life cycle. GTA 6, clearly, surpasses all of them.
Given the expectation that GTA 6 would be the largest leisure launch of all time, it comes as no shock to listen to of astronomical growth prices for Rockstar’s recreation. And it has been within the works for a while; based on Enterprise Insider, a number of the hundreds of workers at Rockstar have been engaged on GTA 6 for over a decade now. In a latest interview with Bloomberg, Zelnick mentioned growth prices have risen through the years, however Take-Two tries to present its groups “limitless monetary, artistic human sources after which they goal to ship perfection.”
Any dialog about GTA 6 growth prices naturally results in a dialogue about how a lot Rockstar will cost for the sport. Financial institution of America lately got here out with a suggestion that GTA 6 be bought for $80, $10 greater than the norm. Analyst opinions on the GTA 6 value are far and wide, with some saying Rockstar ought to persist with $70, and others saying it may simply justify going as much as $100. Whereas GTA 6 will undoubtedly set gross sales data, there are questions on how effectively it may do amid one of many hardest economies in latest reminiscence.
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
