The road to Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6)

There are few video game - or media properties, for that matter - that have the power and have enjoyed the success that Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series has, its latest entry, GTA 5, being perhaps the best example of that.

Released all the way back in 2013 for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, Grand Theft Auto V has not only aged well but done so in admirable fashion. Keeping the game constantly relevant through frequent downloadable content and patches, Rockstar has turned this old game into the World of Warcraft of Grand Theft Auto titles and there’s seemingly no end in sight to what they can do with GTA 5’s platform.

In fact, you may or may not be aware of this, but Grand Theft Auto V is so successful, in fact, it dwarfs Walt Disney’s Star Wars properties as the single most successful media property of all time. That’s right – a video game has raked in more money than Star Wars, and you have Grand Theft Auto Online to thank for that.

Naturally, Rockstar is more than aware of this and is unlikely to kill the golden goose anytime soon, but talk of the future must inevitably come and speculation about Grand Theft Auto VI has never stopped, even in the face of GTA 5’s overwhelming success.

And that forces us to concede that everything we reveal about the upcoming Grand Theft auto VI is, at this point, rumor and speculation with Rockstar remaining mum on the issue and publisher Take-Two focusing on its upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2, a title many analysts expect will become the company’s “second” Grand Theft Auto V. That said, there are hints here and there that after Red Dead Redemption 2 the next installment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise will be on its way.

First, we think that the Grand Theft Auto series is going to completely skip this console generation. This means that, excluding Grand Theft Auto V, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will not see their own GTA titles but will instead have a vastly expanded online GTA 5. When we take this assumption into account, this means that the next Grand Theft Auto game will be a next-gen title and that places its release, at the very earliest, in 2020 or beyond. It is also highly unlikely that a title like GTA 6 would be among the first waves of games for the next Microsoft and Sony machines so 2020 is optimistic at best and unrealistic at worst.

According to Tech Radar, industry analyst Michael Pachter places the next game’s release window sometime in 2022 – a long way away to be sure. Though often incorrect in his prediction, this estimate is nonetheless quite solid given it would place the game towards the end of the next generation home console’s premier cycle of games. A lot of talk is swirling that much of the work on the next Grand Theft Auto title is on hold until Rockstar sees how Red Dead Redemption 2 does, expecting that title to become the next GTA 5, as outlined earlier.