Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Rockstar Games owner Take-Two Interactive, has explained why GTA 6‘s second trailer is taking so long. There has never been a game so anticipated like GTA 6. The last game in the series came out 12 years ago to incredible reviews and non-stop commercial success. Upon its release, GTA 5 made a billion dollars in its first 3 days of release and has sold 210 copies to date, making it the second best selling game of all-time behind Minecraft. Despite the scale of this franchise, Rockstar has remained fairly quiet regarding GTA 6. Outside of a trailer in 2023, Rockstar hasn’t offered anything new on GTA 6 since then.
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It has been reaffirmed multiple times that GTA 6 will release in 2025, but no firm release date has been planted. It seems like it could make its debut in late October or early November based on the release schedule for other Take-Two games, however, no one is budging on narrowing things down for us yet. Many hoped that a second and maybe even third GTA 6 trailer would’ve been out by now given the gap since the first one, but Rockstar has yet to even tease the idea of another one. It seems likely we’ll get another GTA 6 trailer in the next couple months as the game gets closer to release, but what’s taking so long?
GTA 6 Will Begin Marketing Close to Release
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick talked about why Rockstar Games is keeping the release date such a secret and why there hasn’t been any sort of news on the game in well over a year. Ultimately, it boils down to GTA 6 having such a high level of anticipation that the team wants to sustain it and will therefore properly market it closer to when the game is going to release.
“The anticipation for [GTA 6] may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property, said Zelnick. “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. We do have competitors who will describe their release schedule for years in advance. We 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 with unmet anticipation. We don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s what we trying to do.”
This isn’t an unheard of strategy, either. Fallout 4 was announced and released in less than six months, creating a tight marketing window that kept the game on everyone’s minds the entire time. However, GTA 6 may have been in a different position. Given the high level of anticipation and the extensive GTA 6 leaks, it likely wasn’t possible to not say anything about the game until 2025. The trailer whet everyone’s appetites just enough and was able to acknowledge rumors of the game taking place in Vice City, having a female protagonist, and more. However, we know next to nothing about the game, officially speaking, besides that.
We’re still waiting to get first details on GTA 6 Online along with official gameplay footage. It seems likely Rockstar will have the perfect storm of marketing beginning this spring as they can release two more trailers, possibly a gameplay video, and some screenshots and previews for the game over the course of six months, allowing momentum to build toward the final release. A lot of publishers are waiting to see when GTA 6 releases as it will determine their release dates for other games. No one wants to release around GTA 6 if it can be avoided and some are even willing to push their games to 2026 if it really comes down to it.
When do you think GTA 6 trailer 2 will release? Let me know in the comments!
