As GTA 6’s announcement reaches its fourth anniversary, here’s everything we know about the game

So, GTA 6 is exactly four years today — well, not in “age”, but its announcement.

That’s right, folks: February 4th, 2022 was the date Rockstar Games officially revealed the follow up to what is likely its biggest gaming franchise and, two trailers, a massive leak and a release delay later, we’re still scraping the internet for news about what will probably be the release of the gaming calendar this year.

Fortunately, the latest bit of news is a good one, as GamesIndustry.biz has published its interview with Strauss Zelnick, CEO to Take-Two Interactive (Rockstar Games’ parent company) and, while the executive spoke about a lot of things, GTA 6 was definitely a highlight of the piece.

The clear-cut: GTA 6 will not embrace Gen-AI, even if Zelnick is excited about it

The main point of the interview was the ongoing trend of game studios and publishers — big, small or indie — embracing the technology of generative artificial intelligence (“GenAI”, for short) to cut corners in development.

We at PRG have talked at length about how this can be problematic in several ways, but the one aspect the industry seems to be focused on is the “instantaneous” capacity to create assets in gaming: textures, scripts, lines of dialog, you name it.

Well, Zelnick himself admits the technology does pique his curiosity, but he’s also adamant in his statement that GTA 6 won’t have any of it.

“On the topic of AI, I’ve been enthusiastic since the very beginning. This company’s products have always been built with machine learning and artificial intelligence. We’ve actually always been a leader in the space, and right now we have hundreds of pilots and implementations across our company, including within our studios. And we’re already seeing instances where generative AI tools are driving costs and time efficiencies.
Do I think tools by themselves create great entertainment properties? No, there’s no evidence that that’s the case and it won’t be the case in the future. Specifically with regards to GTA 6, Generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building. Their worlds are handcrafted. That’s what differentiates them. They’re built from the ground up, building by building, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. They’re not procedurally generated, they shouldn’t be. That’s what makes great entertainment”

GTA 6 wants to deliver more value than its price tag (but still no word on how much its gonna cost)

After the technology discussion, one other topic that has been buzzing in GTA 6 discussion circles is its price rumor. A lot of credible and questionable people have been circling around the notion that GTA 6 will cost somewhere around the $80 tag.

But the whole debate on it is not the individual cost itself — which a lot of people have already started to complain about — but the capacity of setting a new, pricier standard for the industry. After all, “to cost $80” hits you differently when we’re talking about some unknown game, new IP or minor release; versus a Grand Theft Auto game. The brand is a standard for a lot of things nowadays, and the price may be one of those.

Well, sadly, Zelnick did not assert any final statements in his interview, instead addressing the fear by shifting the focus toward content depth. He stated that the company’s primary goal is to “deliver way more value than what we charge”.

Well, that’s neither here nor there, is it?

Four years in the making: A Timeline of Grand Theft Auto 6

All in all, the journey since GTA 6’s February 2022 announcement has been defined by a mix of strategic reveals and unexpected disruptions.

• The project faced its biggest hurdle when, in September 2022, a massive leak revealed an early version of the game, confirming the Vice City setting and the return to a multi-protagonist system featuring a male and female lead (Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos).
• The first trailer came as a quick-on-the-feet comms strategy since the aforementioned leak forced Rockstar’s hand, and thus the company officially introduced the world to the game’s lead characters, generating record-breaking engagement across all social platforms.
• While the second trailer, which came about in May 2025, was more story-related, it still managed to keep most details under wraps: what we know so far is that Lucia and Jason are somehow entangled in a conspiracy of sorts following a heist gone badly wrong.
• And then came the shifting, with Rockstar Games confirming a launch delay — GTA 6 was originally planned for a May 2026 release, but it’s now settled on November 19, 2026 (though at least one person has seemingly played it already).

Not too far now, but still kinda far, folks. As the entire project has already (allegedly) amassed a nearly $3 billion development cost, it stands to reason that Rockstar and Take-Two are banking the house on GTA 6’s success. While we’re sure it will be huge — every release on the brand has (yes, even Chinatown Wars) — there is a difference between what we, as gamers, see as something successful, versus whatever both companies think it needs to be or expect it to be successful.

We can only hope.