Microsoft filing said GTA VI was expected in 2024, a claim that proved wrong

A document Microsoft submitted to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stated that Grand Theft Auto VI "is expected to be released in 2024." The line, which fans picked up on November 23, 2022, did not come from Rockstar: Microsoft's source for it was a news article, GamesRadar+ reported.

What it means for players

Treat the year as speculation, not a date. Neither Rockstar nor Take-Two had said when the game would launch, not even which year. For the year, the filing cited a press report, not anything from Rockstar or Take-Two.

Where the line came from

The CMA was examining Microsoft's planned takeover of Activision Blizzard. Microsoft's case was that the deal would not hurt competition, and to make it, the company named rival publishers with big games on the way. Rockstar's parent, Take-Two, was one of them. The GTA VI sentence comes near the end of page 24 in a submission that runs to 111 pages, Insider Gaming found.

The chain of sources was short. The filing's citation was a TechRadar article, and TechRadar leaned on Bloomberg's reporting, in which people who worked or had worked at Rockstar put the game at least two years away. That estimate, not any announcement, is where 2024 came from.

Rockstar had confirmed only that the next Grand Theft Auto was in development. The first official year came with Trailer 1 in December 2023, and it was 2025, not 2024. Our timeline lists every official date Rockstar and Take-Two have given since.