We're no closer to an exact GTA 6 release date, but is the incoming crime sim likely to follow its forerunners' end-of-year drops?

GTA 6
(Image credit: Rockstar Games)

Welcome to Grand Theft Autopsy, a recurring feature series here at 12DOVE where we dissect the latest news, rumors and general goings on in GTA 6. Concrete information regarding the next mainline instalment of the Grand Theft Auto series remains thin on the ground, but a recent earnings call might, just might, have given us a better idea of the game's much-anticipated, but so far super-elusive, release date. 

GRAND THEFT AUTOSPY?

GTA 6 trailer screenshots

(Image credit: Rockstar Games)

Where we dissect everything and anything related to GTA 6. Here's our last discussion:

The GTA 6 trailer landed 8 weeks ago – what has the Grand Theft Auto community been speculating about since?

Earlier this month, Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, held an earnings call wherein head honcho Strauss Zelnick outlined a revised forecast for financial year 25. There, Zelnick downgraded the company's projected earnings in FY25 from $8 billion to $7 billion. And while that still is pretty huge, so too is the deficit – leading many to believe that GTA 6 will slip beyond FY25, which runs from April this year to the end of March next year.

Elsewhere on the call, Zelnick spoke about the "inherent tension" of launching a game while striving for "perfection", again potentially suggesting that a date later in 2025 might be more likely than one sooner. Again, this is all speculation at this point – which is, of course, what we do best here on Grand Theft Autospy. 

Join 12DOVE's Features Editor Joe Donnelly and Video Producer Tom Farthing as we dig into that earnings call, while considering the wider series' release dates and how they might tie-in with number six. 


Craving more GTA 6? You should check out our month-long Grand Theft Advent series from the tail-end of last year

Joe Donnelly
Contributor

Joe Donnelly is a sports editor from Glasgow and former features editor at 12DOVE. A mental health advocate, Joe has written about video games and mental health for The Guardian, New Statesman, VICE, PC Gamer and many more, and believes the interactive nature of video games makes them uniquely placed to educate and inform. His book Checkpoint considers the complex intersections of video games and mental health, and was shortlisted for Scotland's National Book of the Year for non-fiction in 2021. As familiar with the streets of Los Santos as he is the west of Scotland, Joe can often be found living his best and worst lives in GTA Online and its PC role-playing scene.

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