The first official GTA VI trailer set new records right away, becoming the most-viewed YouTube video (except for two songs by South Korean boy band BTS) on its launch day. In just 34 hours, the trailer had already amassed 100 million views.
It’s been a little over seven months since December 5, and the GTA VI trailer has now reached the impressive milestone of 200 million views. For comparison, the debut GTA V trailer only has around 111 million views despite having been on YouTube for twelve years. The trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto installment also helped its signature song, Tom Petty’s Love Is a Long Road, mark a mind-boggling 36,979% increase in Spotify streams.
These figures once again reaffirm the incredible amount of hype for what is now undoubtedly the most anticipated game in the industry, following GTA V’s 200 million units sold to date. In fact, according to Circana (formerly NPD), GTA VI is expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time when it launches.
Currently, Take-Two has established a Fall 2025 launch window for Grand Theft Auto VI. However, looking at Rockstar’s recent track record, it is hard to imagine there won’t be any delays. GTA V was originally slated to launch in Q2 2013 before being moved to September 17, 2013. Red Dead Redemption 2 fared even worse, suffering two major delays: from the second half of 2017 to Spring 2018 and later to October 26, 2018, the final launch date. That’s more or less in line with the average of triple-A games, which also tend to see one or two delays.
Of course, it is also possible Rockstar Games has improved its internal development prediction model. GTA fans certainly are eager to play a brand new entry in the franchise, having already waited for nearly eleven years.
Meanwhile, Rockstar continues to update GTA Online, which, as we had all assumed, essentially cannibalized a promising GTA V story DLC with its incredible appeal.
