In a video interview with Bloomberg last Friday, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick discussed, among other topics, Grand Theft Auto VI. Although he, unsurprisingly, doesn’t spill the beans on the release date, Zelnick provided some insight into Take-Two and Rockstar’s reasoning for keeping fans waiting.
At the end of the interview, Zelnick was asked the million-dollar question: when is GTA VI launching and why is Take-Two/Rockstar keeping it such a big secret? Zelnick responded:
“The anticipation for that title may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property. And I’ve been around the block a few times, and I’ve been in every entertainment business there is. We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement. And we do have competitors who will describe their release schedule for years in advance, and we’ve found that the better thing to do is to provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement, on the one hand, and balance the excitement on that anticipation. And we don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Earlier in the interview, Zelnick was asked to explain the 12-year wait between GTA V, released in 2013, and GTA VI, providing additional context for Rockstar’s release cadence:
“Well, there are really two reasons,” says Zelnick. “We set an intention to rest our intellectual properties. So some of our competitors come to market very regularly, maybe even annually, with their titles. We only annualize our sports entertainment titles. For our non-sports titles, we think you need to create enormous anticipation, on the one hand. And of course on the other hand, it takes a long time to develop these big robust experiences.
Rockstar Games seeks perfection in what they do, and perfection’s a pretty high bar. It takes a long time. And the reflection of that approach is in the success of Grand Theft Auto V, which has actually excelled in three console generations, which is extraordinary…so think of the high bar that that creates for us, of course, but much more so for the consumer.”
Grand Theft Auto VI was announced in December 2023. Set in a modern-day Vice City (which is modeled after Miami and South Florida), it appears to star two protagonists, including the series’ first female lead, although Rockstar has not yet divulged details on these characters or their relationship with each other. The reveal trailer became a massive success, garnering over 100 million views in just a few days and setting a YouTube record for most views within a 24-hour period.
Grand Theft Auto VI is slated to release sometime this year on consoles. A PC version has yet to be confirmed, though if it does launch on the platform, it will likely arrive later. For more on the game, you can watch Game Informer’s resident Floridians provide a humorous play-by-play analysis of the reveal trailer.
