Rockstar confirms the next Grand Theft Auto is in active development

Rockstar Games acknowledged its next Grand Theft Auto for the first time on February 4, 2022. In a community update on the Rockstar Newswire, the studio wrote that "active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway."

A short statement inside a longer post

The line sat inside a longer post that mostly dealt with GTA Online. Rockstar presented it as an answer to players: it said many fans had been asking about a new game because of the "unprecedented longevity of GTA V," as VGC quoted it. It added a statement of intent, that with every project its goal is to "significantly move beyond what we have previously delivered," in the words Kotaku reported. Rockstar closed by promising more information once it was ready, and told players to watch the Newswire for official news.

Nothing else was announced about the game. Rockstar did not use the name GTA 6 or Grand Theft Auto VI, a point Kotaku picked up on, and it gave no setting, characters, platforms, release window or trailer.

What it meant for players

Until this post, every claim about a sequel had come from reports and insiders rather than from Rockstar. Kotaku, for example, had reported back in 2020 that some form of the next GTA was in the works. The February update settled one question only: the game existed and was being built in earnest. Where it would be set, who it would star and when it would ship all stayed unconfirmed, so any detail circulating at the time was still a rumor.

The statement also showed how Rockstar meant to handle news about the game. By pointing fans to its own Newswire, it signalled that official details would come from Rockstar first, and on its own schedule.

The rest of the update

Most of the post looked backward and at the near future of GTA V. Its opening thanked GTA Online players for 2021, mentioning the Los Santos Tuners update and the missions featuring Dr. Dre. It then covered the versions of GTA V and GTA Online for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, which VGC said Rockstar was preparing to release on March 15, 2022. Kotaku noted that the update described what those new console versions would add and how GTA Online would change on them.

Those console versions help explain why fans were impatient. GTA V had launched in late 2013, and by 2022 it had already been brought to PS4, Xbox One and PC. The March release took it to a third console generation, with its successor still unnamed.

What investors were reading into it

The announcement also arrived as analysts were trying to read Take-Two's plans. VGC reported that Take-Two, Rockstar's parent company, had forecast 14% compound annual growth through 2024, and that it had announced a $12.7 billion deal to buy the mobile publisher Zynga in January. Cowen analyst Doug Creutz took the company's outlook as pointing to "a likely GTA 6 launch in FY24," meaning Take-Two's fiscal year ending in March 2024. Creutz also recalled that Take-Two's targets had once suggested an earlier window for GTA V, which then arrived in late 2013. Rockstar's statement said nothing about timing.

Looking back

The game stayed unnamed for almost two more years. In July 2022 Rockstar added that it had been moving development resources to the game. Take-Two's press release of December 4, 2023 announced Grand Theft Auto VI, set in the state of Leonida, home to Vice City, alongside its first trailer. The steps between that reveal and launch are collected on our timeline, and the current release details are in the launch FAQ.