GTA 6: Everything You Need to Know Before You Play

Grand Theft Auto VI comes out on Thursday 19 November on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with no PC version. The Standard Edition costs £69.99 and the Ultimate Edition £89.99, and if you buy a boxed copy, you’ll get a code in the box rather than a disc. PlayStation Store listings point to a 12am unlock in the UK, but Rockstar hasn’t confirmed an hour itself.

It’s a single-player game at launch, following Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos across Leonida, Rockstar’s version of Florida. GTA V came out in 2013, so this is the first new Grand Theft Auto in thirteen years.

GTA 6 unlocks on Thursday 19 November

GTA 6 was first due in 2025, then moved to May 2026 and finally to 19 November 2026, and Take-Two has stood by that date ever since.

PlayStation Store listings show the game unlocking at midnight local time, starting in New Zealand and working west. That means 12am GMT on 19 November in the UK and midnight Eastern time across the US, which is 9pm on 18 November on the West Coast. GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 also unlocked region by region, but Rockstar hasn’t put a time on GTA 6 itself, so check the countdown on your console’s store page in launch week.

Pre-loading opened on Tuesday 10 November, two days earlier than first planned. Rockstar set PS5 pre-loading for midnight local time and Xbox for midnight GMT. Rockstar says you’ll need up to 212GB of free space, depending on your console. Pre-loading doesn’t let you play early, but it saves you that download on release night. I’ve pre-loaded mine on my PS5 while I wait for a PS5 Pro to arrive. The Pro gets PSSR upscaling and ray-traced shadows that are only on that console, with a 30fps target on every console.

On launch day, Rockstar is also adding a free printable cover art poster and a map of Leonida to the official GTA VI site.

Standard or Ultimate: what each edition gets you

Both editions include the full game. The Ultimate Edition adds single-player extras threaded through the story. Rockstar’s full list includes:

• the ’95 Grotti Cheetah, a mid-90s sports car
• the ’67 Vapid Dominator Buggy and the Paradise Garage in Watson Bay
• Jason’s safehouse vehicles, a Dinka Enduro motorbike and a Crest kayak
• the Shitzu Squalo boat and a mod kit for Jason’s Vapid Ganado pick-up
• the Hawk & Little Morgan revolvers
• exclusive shops, including the Rideout Customs mod shop
• a raid on the PTT Youngin$ gang compound
• the Classic Car Collection, a commission from Wyman to find and restore abandoned cars

If you buy the Standard Edition and change your mind, the Ultimate Edition Upgrade can be bought separately at any time.

If you want something on the shelf, the boxed copy is a download code in a case, with no disc, and it reached shops on 12 November. Some collectors weren’t happy. One Reddit user, quoted by TechRadar, called it “Such a bummer as a physical collector”.

Pre-order bonuses end on 20 November

Every digital purchase made before 20 November, launch day included, gets the Vintage Vice City Pack, and physical pre-orders include it while stocks last. It includes a ’55 Vapid Stanier with a garage near Ocean Beach, retro outfits and hairstyles, and a weapon pattern based on Tommy Vercetti’s palm tree shirt from the original Vice City.

Digital pre-orders also come with one month of GTA+, Rockstar’s subscription. For now that’s a GTA Online perk, since GTA+ benefits go to the existing GTA Online.

Should you pre-order? Go Ultimate if you’re all-in

If you know you’re going to be all in for the experience, I’d say go all out for it and get the Ultimate Edition. The extra £20 doesn’t change the story, but if you’re planning to live in Leonida for months, the cars, weapons and safehouse extras unlock as you work through the story.

If you only want to play the story, the Standard Edition is the full game, and you can upgrade later if you get hooked.

Jason and Lucia lead a story set across Leonida

Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos are the leads, and the story is built around them as a couple.

Lucia’s father taught her to fight as soon as she could walk, according to her official bio. She’s fresh out of prison and, in Rockstar’s words, committed to her plan, no matter what it takes.

Jason Duval wants an easy life, but things keep getting harder. His bio says meeting Lucia could be the best or worst thing that ever happened to him.

Rockstar has introduced six more characters on the official site so far:

• Cal Hampton, Jason’s friend, who’d rather stay home listening to Coast Guard radio than chase Jason’s bigger plans.
• Brian Heder, a landlord and a drug runner from the golden age of smuggling in the Keys.
• Boobie Ike, a Vice City legend who owns real estate, a strip club and a recording studio.
• Dre’Quan Priest, Boobie’s partner at Only Raw Records, who books acts into Boobie’s club.
• Real Dimez, the rap duo Bae-Luxe and Roxy, who’ve signed to Only Raw.
• Raul Bautista, a seasoned bank robber.

The setting is Leonida, Rockstar’s take on Florida. Vice City, its version of Miami, is the centrepiece, but the state stretches out to the Leonida Keys, swamps and small towns. Vice City’s last full outing was the 2002 game, so this is a return, just on a much bigger map.

Four videos built the hype

Rockstar has released four major videos in three years, starting with Trailer 1 on 4 December 2023. It arrived ahead of schedule after leaking online and introduced Lucia, Vice City and the social media chaos of modern Leonida.

Jason took centre stage in Trailer 2 on 6 May 2025, and Rockstar began adding the supporting cast to the official site.

For the half-hour Extended Look, Rockstar went to Netflix, premiering it there on 27 August 2026 before it came to YouTube later that day.

Justice’s “Flower in a Hurricane” made its debut in the Launch Trailer on 15 October 2026, which was captured in-game on PS5.

New to GTA? How the series works

Grand Theft Auto is an open-world crime series. You play criminals working their way up, through story missions, with the freedom to ignore all of it and explore. You can steal almost any car, change the radio, rob a shop or drive around.

The series is known for its satire. Everything in the world is a parody of the real one, from the brands on the billboards to the adverts and talk shows on the radio. Rockstar uses it to poke fun at American culture, and in GTA 6 that includes the social media age, which the trailers lean into heavily.

The games that led here

• Grand Theft Auto III (2001) moved the series into 3D, in Liberty City, Rockstar’s New York.
• Vice City (2002) took it to a 1980s version of Miami, with Tommy Vercetti and a soundtrack full of 80s hits.
• San Andreas (2004) went bigger, with three cities and CJ’s story.
• Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) went back to Liberty City with a darker, more grounded tone.
• Grand Theft Auto V (2013) gave you three protagonists in Los Santos, and its online mode, GTA Online, kept players busy for over a decade.

You don’t need to have played any of them to follow GTA 6.

The soundtrack already has a hit

The song from the Launch Trailer, “Flower in a Hurricane”, has taken off, and I really like it. It’s by Justice, the French duo writing the game’s score, featuring Tame Impala, SZA and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. It reached number 31 on the UK Official Singles Chart and number 62 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In GTA V, Cara Delevingne voiced the DJ on Non-Stop-Pop FM, and DJ Cara was quite a popular thing. I anticipate this song will become the same kind of talking point for GTA 6, and with it already in the charts before launch, it’s a great bit of marketing in itself.

It’s also one of the singles from Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album, a 34-track collection of original songs from Rockstar and Atlantic Records, out on 19 November alongside the game.

Six radio stations have been revealed so far:

• Flash FM, back from the original Vice City
• Cocoteo FM
• AfroBank FM
• The Chamber 106.6
• Back Country Radio
• Dirty South Classics

Rockstar turned Miami into Vice City

Rockstar’s marketing budget for this must be insane, because it has rebranded Miami as Vice City.

It started on the roof of the Miami Heat’s arena, where a giant Welcome to Vice City sign went up in September. Rockstar is paying Miami-Dade County $975,000 for it, according to documents seen by the Miami Herald. On 18 November, the night before launch, the Heat will play the Milwaukee Bucks as Vice City, in new kits on a Vice City court, live on ESPN.

In mid-October, a convoy of real cars dressed as GTA 6 vehicles, wearing Leonida number plates, was filmed around Miami and out to Key Biscayne, led by a police-liveried Lamborghini Huracán. Vice City chairs and umbrellas went up on Miami Beach and a Vice City blimp flew overhead. Hard Rock Stadium, where the Miami Dolphins play, was covered in GTA 6 ads for a weekend.

Miami-Dade’s sheriff, Rosie Cordero-Stutz, and a county commissioner raised concerns about a proposed marketing deal with Rockstar.

In London, Selfridges has turned The Corner Shop on Oxford Street into a Vice City store, running from 9 to 28 November, with a 10-foot Macca the Gator and a real Grotti Cheetah. The car was built with West Coast Customs, takes its look from the Ferrari Testarossa and wears Vice City pink and blue, and Selfridges is selling it for £1 million.

The merch keeps selling out

I haven’t managed to get hold of any GTA 6 merch, because it’s sold out.

Rockstar opened its GTA VI collection on the Rockstar Store on 8 October, with T-shirts, caps, bags and collectibles. The album’s $125 liquid vinyl sold out in minutes.

At Tokyo Game Show, lines for a free GTA 6 T-shirt at the PlayStation booth were closed within 10 minutes, and the shirts have been reselling on eBay for over $200.

The Selfridges collection runs to more than 60 items, from a Vice City Manatees football helmet to a Burger Shot apron and a £2,500 varsity jacket, and some items were reportedly sold out on the Selfridges website. Selfridges is also the only physical shop in the UK selling The Goodtime State, Rockstar’s Vice City collector’s box, which costs £349 and doesn’t include the game.

Some of Britain is booking the day off

Take-Two’s boss, Strauss Zelnick, said this year that “a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19”, as GamesRadar reported. I won’t be one of them, unfortunately.

In the UK, a YouGov survey for One Day Agency of 1,000 people found 7% expected to book launch day off, and 4% expected to take several days. Three quarters planned no change at all, and the survey’s authors warn against scaling those numbers up to all UK workers.

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