The latest instalment in Rockstar’s blockbuster game franchise, Grand Theft Auto, is set to be the biggest games launch of the year.

GTA 6 became available to pre-order at midnight on 25 June in the UK and elsewhere around the world, after Rockstar revealed the game’s pre-sales launch date and cover art in mid-June.

Analysts believe Rockstar’s action adventure could become the most expensive game ever made, with estimates, external putting development costs at more than $1bn (£866m).

Here’s what we do and don’t know about GTA 6 so far.

GTA 6 will be released on 19 November – and with Rockstar recently opening up pre-orders, this date seems all but certain.

But it was delayed twice previously, from autumn 2025 and May 2026.

In a statement when the second delay was announced, Rockstar said it needed extra months to finish the game with the level of polish fans had come to “expect and deserve”.

Rockstar said players who pre-order will be able to begin pre-loading it on their consoles on 12 November to ensure they are able to play at launch.

The sixth game in the main series will be released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S.

There’s no news on when a PC version will be released – it’s also currently unknown whether it will come to Nintendo Switch 2.

The game will cost £69.99 in the UK and $79.99 in the US – with an ultimate edition, featuring extra vehicles and weapons, priced at £89.99 and $99.99, respectively.

Physical copies of the game will contain a code for a digital download for the game inside a box, rather than a disc.

Rockstar has not yet confirmed whether an updated online mode will be released as soon as GTA 6 launches, although given the success of GTA Online, external it is likely to exist at some point.

How any future age verification legislation in the UK around social media and particularly messaging in gaming could therefore affect it, if at all, is still unknown.

GTA 6 will feature its first ever playable female protagonist in a 3D setting – Lucia – alongside her partner in life and crime, Jason, as a second playable character.

From what we’ve seen so far in the two gameplay trailers, the story will follow the pair in a Bonnie and Clyde-esque adventure through the seedy underbelly of America after an “easy score goes wrong, external“.

Like other GTA games before it, the sixth chapter is set in a fictional US state – this time in Leonida, which is Rockstar’s version of Florida.

Fans of previous games will be excited to hear that Vice City, which is inspired by Miami, will return, featuring as the main city within the state.

GTA 6’s cover art revealed by Rockstar on 18 June made several nods to the setting with alligators and flamingos.

It’s no secret that GTA 6 has been a few years in the making.

The franchise’s last instalment, GTA 5, was released in September 2013 – and quickly became one of the best-selling games of all time.

It’s unclear whether Rockstar has been working on the sixth instalment for all of that time, however, as in 2018 it also released another huge sequel – Red Dead Redemption 2.

Rockstar confirmed for the first time that it was working on a sixth game in the series in February 2022.

The rising cost of development and immense pressure to live up to the series’ hype are all contributing factors as to why gamers have had to wait so long for the game’s release.

Several months later, footage and images leaked after teenage hackers targeted the company.

It has also seen some issues since, including accusations of “union-busting” by sacked workers at Rockstar North, its Edinburgh HQ, where developers have been racing to get GTA 6 ready for release in November.

To put it simply, the GTA franchise is one of the biggest and most profitable entertainment properties in history.

GTA 5 has sold nearly 230 million copies, making it one of the best-selling games of all time – which has generated billions of dollars in revenue for Rockstar.

The game’s sandbox gameplay, where players can explore vast open worlds with considerable freedom – sometimes controversially – has seen it be continuously lauded as the ultimate expression for what the interactive medium can do.

Freelance video games journalist Vic Hood said each entry in the series “continued to push technical and gameplay boundaries”, with GTA Online helping to “pioneer the live service model as we know it”.

She added that the games were also “extremely culturally relevant” too.

“Rockstar has always had its finger on the pulse of music, entertainment, societal, political, celebrity, and online culture trends, and they’ve never shied away from satirising these things in GTA games,” she said.

British gaming entrepreneur Sir Ian Livingstone told the BBC’s Today programme that the series, originally developed in Scotland, was “bigger than any film or song” and an “incredible achievement in interactive software”.

Speculation as to how a sixth game can top even the gigantic heights of its predecessor has meant that any latest news, no matter how small, has been met with a flurry of hype and excitement.

Both of GTA 6’s previous gameplay trailers currently have a total of roughly 447 million views combined.

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