Terrible news! Santa ignored all my letters asking for 2025 to be a year when no new videogames came out so I could catch up on everything I missed from the past several years. In fact, it seems like maybe someone else might have sent him a letter asking for there to be more big games coming than ever.
]]>A few months ago, the rumour took root that GTA 6's release date would slip back from 2025 to 2026. An anonymous insider averred that studio heads were "worried" about the new open world game's progress - hence, perhaps, Rockstar's decision to mandate a full return to in-office work. Pshaw, say publishers Take-Two CEO. They announced a fall 2025 launch in March and have just doubled down on it in their latest financial briefing, with CEO Strauss Zelnick subsequently going on the tellybox to say that Take-Two are "highly confident in the timing", though he still has nothing to share about GTA 6 on PC.
]]>Any ambitions you may have had to relive that scene from Trainspotting in the nightclubs of open world game GTA 6 have been cruelly dashed. Martyn Ware - of 80's synthpop band Heaven 17 - took to Xitter over the weekend to share his experience of Rockstar games attempting to licence his song Temptation. The offer, which Ware describes as for “a buyout of any future royalties from the game”, was allegedly for $7500.
]]>While he's "blown away" by the beach scenes in the first GTA 6 trailer, former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij thinks the forthcoming open worlder might underwhelm players hoping for a palpable technological update on GTA 5, which has been reworked and re-released extensively since its 2013 launch. This has less to do with GTA in itself, Vermeij says, than with the fact that changes in computing capacity today simply aren't as dramatic as in the days of the very first PlayStation. It's becoming rare, he suggests, that you see a "jump" akin to GTA going 3D.
]]>We've had the enshittification of Google, Facebook and the public internet at large, now for the enshittification of GTA Online. What do you mean, "it was enshittified to start with"? Take it to the comments please, because first I need to tell you about the latest GTA Online update, which allows you to collect cash accumulated in safes, request vehicles and replenish ammo using your in-game phone - but only if you pay up $8 or $7 a month for a GTA+ subscription, which is currently not available on PC.
]]>Open world crime-a-thon GTA 6 will release next “fall”, according to publisher Take-Two Interactive’s latest earning report, via Eurogamer. This narrows the previously announced release window of “2025” down by, uh, infinity I suppose? A year is an effectively endless stretch in terms of release calenders. But “Fall”, despite not being a real season, is something I can work with.
]]>GTA 6 publishers Take-Two Interactive have announced that they're "rationalizing" their "pipeline" and positioning/restructuring/streamlining for growth by, you guessed it, laying off a load of people and cancelling a bunch of games. As detailed in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Take-Two are doing away with five per cent of the approximately 11,000 people who work for them, and have cancelled several in-development projects worth tens of millions of dollars.
]]>GTA 6 is facing development troubles, leaving leadership “nervous” that the hotly anticipated open world crime-athon could be “falling behind’ expected schedules. That’s according to Kotaku, who were told by an anonymous source that studio heads are “worried” that the game could miss 2025 completely and not see release until 2026. Kotaku were told that the studio is still “aiming” for a Spring 2025 release date, but sources feel Fall of the same year is more plausible. However, the title could be delayed until 2026 as a “fallback plan.”
]]>GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games are reportedly ending hybrid working and requiring employees to return to the office full-time, with a view to being in "the best position to deliver the next Grand Theft Auto at the level of quality and polish we know it requires, along with a publishing roadmap that matches the scale and ambition of the game." That's allegedly from an email to staff sent by head of publishing Jenn Kolbe.
]]>It's time to play everybody's favourite game - no, not GTA 6, but the GTA 6 Release Date Quiz. Who's stepping up to the podium this time? Why, it's Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, who offered thoughts on the matter in a recent investor Q&A. Fingers on the buzzers, everybody!
]]>The first week of January is always one of my favourite times of the year. It's a time for making plans, setting goals, thinking about all the cool new games I'll be playing over the next 12 months (while also looking nervously at the pile of games I missed over the last 12 months and placing them very, very gingerly on the teetering and totteringly tall pile of my backlog). And, of course, making some new year's resolutions. Traditionally, I don't often set myself too many resolutions - I always give myself a reading goal (35 books is what I'm aiming for this year), for example, but the rest I usually play pretty fast and loose with - more 'nice to haves' rather than 'musts', I'd say.
This year, though, I do have a few gaming-related resolutions on my list, and in discussing them with the rest of the RPS Treehouse, it turns out we all have some games-themed goals this year. So I thought it would be fun to share them with you all below. And if you've also made some gaming resolutions for 2024, tell us about them in the comments. We can hold ourselves accountable together, like that big curtain of eldritch eyeballs up there in the header from good game Norco.
]]>If you were impressed by how good the first GTA 6 trailer looked, you were far from alone: even developers who previously worked at Rockstar were blown away by the level of detail shown.
]]>Grand Theft Auto 6's first trailer has resulted in an M-class star's worth of reaction videos from YouTubers across the globe, but one that stands out from the army of gurning thumbnails is the response of Mike York. York is a professional animator who worked at Rockstar for 6 years, designing animations for both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Now he runs his own YouTube channel, York Reacts, and naturally he had some things to say about GTA6's trailer.
]]>This week on the Electronic Wireless Show podcast we give our live* reactions to the new trailer for ">Grand Theft Auto 6, a game that certainly exists! Basically none of the predictions we made two weeks ago came true, but hey, there might still be a bunch of gorillas in it. And what about the fact that it leaked, huh? Is that bad? Should we feel sad for Rockstar? Will it make a difference, really? And why did James drink so much whiskey this weekend?
]]>Doom scrolling social media looks to have replaced the age-old pasttime of watching TV in GTA 6, which has prompted feelings of alternating despair and increasing irrelevance in me this morning. I barely understand how TikTok works in real-life, let alone a video game pastiche of it, and oh god, how did I get so old and craggy? I'm just here for the nice-looking flamingos, Rockstar, not a 24/7 twerk stream I can access from the palm of my hand. Of course, TV watching may yet have been preserved beyond what we've seen so far in the first trailer for GTA 6, but even if it's been consigned to the bin of modern history, there might yet be one light in the TikTok-esque darkness to make GTA 6's in-game social media network worthwhile.
Upon closer inspection of the account names seen in the trailer, it's "PlanetLeonidaMan" that gives me hope, because if this isn't a riff on the Florida Man meme, I'll take a dump on a dead possum during rush hour traffic, hurl Oreos at Matthew as we argue over our empty coffee maker (teapot, come on), and try to cross the Atlantic in a hamster wheel vessel to demand some answers.
]]>The GTA 6 trailer is finally here. Check out what Rockstar Games has been creating in this debut look at Grand Theft Auto 6, confirmed to be releasing for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S – let's assume a PC version is coming later on.
]]>The first trailer for GTA 6 might have gone live ahead of schedule just as most of us in the RPS Treehouse were tucking down for bed last night, but it has, to no one's surprise at all, captivated the internet at large regardless. Now that we've had some time to digest and absorb it properly (and not with the words "BUY BTC" plastered across it), we've gathered some of our initial thoughts about the trailer below. And what can I say? A lot of us were very taken with those lovely flamingos.
]]>According to Rockstar founder Sam Houser, GTA 6 "continues our efforts to push the limits of what's possible in highly immersive, story-driven open-world experiences". Broadcasting via Take-Two Interactive press release in the wake of yesterday's premature GTA 6 trailer release (I hope you didn't accidentally watch the leaked cryptocurrency-branded version), Houser added that "we're thrilled to be able to share this new vision with players everywhere" when it launches in 2025. Except on PC. For the moment, anyway.
]]>Rockstar have uploaded the first GTA 6 trailer ahead of schedule this evening after a second leak saw the whole thing get plastered across social media. Tomorrow, December 5th at 2pm GMT, was meant to be the grand reveal of GTA 6's first trailer, but Rockstar have put the whole thing live early, confirming that, yes, it is going to be called GTA 6, and it's coming in 2025.
]]>We’re mere hours away from the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, the simple teaser image for which has already sparked an internet-wide meme and thrown infinite fuel on the ever-burning GTA 6 rumour fire. Big questions remain, of course. Not least: when will GTA 6 actually be out? Yet some eagle-eyed internet detectives reckon GTA 6’s release date has been staring us all in the face - and nips - for months.
]]>The first GTA 6 trailer will release on 5th December at 9am ET, 2pm GMT and 6am PT, Rockstar have announced. What's more, they've shared around the first piece of GTA 6 art. It's got palm trees in it. Seagulls too.
]]>This week on the Electronic Wireless Show podcast we talk all things GTAVI augury, what with the community going bananas for secret GTAVI clues, and Rockstar finally announcing that they'll have a trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto arriving in December. Our predictions are in fact not as outlandish as you might think, although there are gorillas, obviously.
]]>GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games were once working on a zombie survival game set on a Scottish island, which sounds like a mixture of GTA: Vice City and legendary Arma mod DayZ. That's according to former technical director Obbe Vermeij, who joined Rockstar North in 1995 back when it was called DMA Design, and left in 2009 following the release of GTA 4. In the run-up to the GTA 6 trailer reveal next month, he's started blogging about the development of several Rockstar games, from GTA through grotty snuff film simulator Manhunt to cancelled projects such as the zombie title and Cold War stealth fest Agent.
]]>Speaking to investors in an earnings call this week, GTA 6 publisher Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick had a bit to say about the eternally uncontroversial topic of videogame prices. In news worth holding the press for, he thinks they're pretty cheap for what you get in return.
Zelnick cautioned one investor against "generalising" about the state of game pricing based on the recent fortunes of TV and movie subscription services like Netflix, which have had to increase subscription fees to match their expenses after underpricing themselves initially to grow their audiences. Videogames might be all about subscription services these days, Zelnick said, but that doesn't mean they are subject to the same commercial logics as ye olde non-interactive media. In particular, it doesn't mean publishers are currently able to raise videogame prices, even if they feel like they're overdelivering.
]]>GTA 6 publisher Take-Two Interactive’s CEO Strauss Zelnick has been on the blower to the company’s investors about the idea of making games using the latest artificial intelligence content generation tools. Echoing his relatively guarded enthusiasm for NFTs a couple of years ago, he’s sort of mixed on them, regarding AI tools less as transformative technologies than simply the latest step towards the eternal industry objective of More, Faster And Better For Less.
Zelnick thinks automated learning and generation tools will make development more “efficient” and games, overall “better”, but in terms of Take-Two’s own bottom line, any gains will likely be offset by the fact that other big companies have access to the same tools, and by the fact that Take-Two will take advantage of said efficiencies by setting more ambitious goals. As such, he doesn’t think using generative AI will lead to lower prices for big commercial games. If you’re a developer that can’t afford to buy or license generative “AI” tools, Zelnick added, you can expect competition to become “more intense” in the coming years. Good stuff.
]]>Want to know more about GTA 6? Grand Theft Auto 6 is the next GTA game from Rockstar Games, and now that we've had a first trailer and release date confirmed, there's a lot more to talk about than earlier in the year. Read on for everything we know so far about GTA 6.
]]>When first I played GTA Online back in the Xbox 360 days it felt like an afterthought, a chance to play some random good-for-nothing in GTA 5's sizzling alt-Los Angeles, securely cloistered away from the events of the all-important singleplayer story. Having built yourself a no-name crim, you galloped around cranking out cash and XP by means of glorified sidequests handed down by headliners such as Lamar. Skip forward to 2023, and as Alice0 observed when we discussed Rockstar's GTA 6 announcements this morning, GTA Online is effectively an MMO with ten years of updates, expansions and community projects under its belt. The no-name crim has become the star attraction.
]]>Update 8th November 2023: Rockstar have confirmed that a GTA 6 trailer will release before 2023 is out. Posting on Xitter, the developer's co-founder Sam Houser wrote that "we are very excited to let you know that in early December, we will release the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto."
Original story: Rockstar will make a quick Grand Theft Auto 6 announcement as soon as this week ahead of the first proper GTA 6 trailer in December - the month of Rockstar's 25th anniversary - according to a fresh report.
]]>A few weeks ago I wrote about Grand Theft Auto players describing the movement of planes in random GTA promotional art as evidence of a forthcoming GTA 6 reveal, timed to intersect with the waning gibbous moon. I thought that the furore might die down after GTA 6 failed to materialise in accordance with the lunar cycle, but it turns out this rabbit hole has no bottom.
Come now, gaze upon the above, just-posted Rockstar promotional image for a new Red Dead Online outfit. To my eye, that picture looks like a weird dude in a mask, gazing at you through piles of skulls. Standard Halloween gamer fare. But it turns out that when you draw lines on it using MS Paint, you end up with the below.
]]>Rockstar are about to properly announce Grand Theft Auto VI, going by some hectic speculation surrounding a TwiX image for GTA Online's upcoming in-game Red Happy Moon Tee festival. A child in the ways of the internet might glance at said image and merely conclude that if you play GTA Online at any point this week, you can scoop up a seasonal cosmetic. But look again with unclouded eyes, young one. What does your heart say to you?
]]>Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, have had a Goat Simulator 3 ad taken down because it included the goat photoshopped over some of the leaked GTA 6 footage from a couple months back.
Goat Sim developers Coffee Stain Studios knew this would happen, and they knew people would report on it when it did. I am facilitating shenanigans, and I can hear that damn goat laughing at me from within the black void of its copyright takedown notice.
]]>The 17-year-old suspected of hacking Rockstar Games and leaking footage of Grand Theft Auto 6 has pled not guilty to the charge of computer misuse. He has reportedly pled guilty to breaching bail conditions however and is now being held in a youth detention centre.
]]>Police in the UK have arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking, and it’s been alleged that it could be connected to the breach at Rockstar Games that led to the recent Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks. Journalist Matthew Keys tweeted that a source has told him that the teenager’s detainment was related to the Rockstar hack and another involving Uber. Keys claimed that the suspect is connected to hacking group Lapsus$, which organises through Telegram channels.
]]>Since the weekend’s GTA 6 leaks have proliferated around the digital superhighways like someone weaving a stolen car dodgily past us all, it’s emerged that there are those who believe graphics are the first thing finished during a game’s development. This is not the case. Developers know that, so some have shared early footage of well-known games that you and I have most likely played in a very different form.
]]>Rockstar Games have issued a statement following leaks over the weekend of early footage from the next game in the series, GTA 6, saying they suffered a "network intrusion" from an unauthorised third party, and were "extremely disappointed" that the early development footage was made public through the hack. It’s also emerged that the same hacker may have been responsible for a breach of rideshare platform Uber last week. Uber say they’re in contact with both the FBI and the U.S. Department Of Justice over the hacks.
]]>A huge number of videos purporting to show in-game development footage for GTA 6 have been plastered across various internet forums this morning, because apparently no one can wait until a video game is actually anywhere near finished before they feel compelled to spoil it for all and sundry.
The 80-some clips seemingly show everything from full, in-game scenarios to clearly unfinished bits of grey boxing, but you won't find a link to them here, because the truth is, they're simply not worth looking at. What possible benefit could they provide anyone right here, right now? The leaker gets their five minutes of fame and an influx of new followers, sure. But GTA 6 itself isn't going to look anything like what you see in those clips when it's actually finished, so someone please tell me, what is even the point?
]]>More information about Rockstar’s next Grand Theft Auto game has slipped out of a new report from Bloomberg. Staff at the company spoke about how the cultural changes that have been taking place since former head Dan Houser’s infamous 100-hour working week comments in 2018 have affected the game’s development, with sources saying GTA 6 will apparently have a playable female protagonist for the first time in the series' history. It sounds like we might have quite some time to wait to play it though, so watch the trailer for GTA Online’s new Criminal Enterprises update below to sate your appetite for misdemeanours.
]]>Rockstar have confirmed that they won’t support their digital Westworld of Red Dead Online with any further major content updates, as the development of the next Grand Theft Auto takes priority. The news came via a post on Rockstar’s newswire blog. Players among the Red Dead Online community have been vocal about their disappointment at the game’s apparent lack of support, with some even deciding to organise a funeral for the multiplayer cowboy spin-off scheduled for July 13th.
]]>Eight years after the launch of Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Games have finally confirmed yes, they really are making a new GTA. For eight years they've focused on adding new content to the MMO-y GTA Online mode, which seems a licence to print money by selling in-game cash for real cash. This has made some fans ornery, wondering if they'll just keep on plugging away at GTAO forever, especially with GTAV coming to next-gen consoles this year. But no, really, Rockstar say they really have been making a new one.
]]>I can picture it now: cruising down Vice Point, behind the wheel of a Cheetah, giving off big divorced dad energy as W.A.S.P. bellows from the car stereo. How brilliant would it be to head back to Rockstar's Miami? If you believe what's been said over the past few days, we'll all get the chance to revisit one of video game's great locations in a few years time.
]]>Another E3 has come and gone without Rockstar Games talking about Grand Theft Auto VI, but that sure hasn't stopped everyone else from chatting about it. Rockstar still haven't actually announced their next crime 'em up in any official capacity, but most folks are operating under the assumption that they must be working on it. They must be, right? There've been all sorts of GTA 6 rumors over the years, though new reports have now cropped up suggesting an eventual 2024 or 2025 launch date for the assumed GTA 6 and a modern Vice City setting. Here's what's being said and who's saying it, in the absence of Rockstar announcing anything themselves.
]]>Rockstar have announced today that, as was previously rumored, they have indeed acquired Ruffian Games, makers of Crackdown 2 and helping hands on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Ruffian is getting less ruff, adopting the new corporate family name Rockstar Dundee. Both say they look forward to working together on future projects, though they've not said yet just what those will be.
]]>Starting your own digital distribution store is the hot trend amongst big developers and publishers, so I was genuinely surprised to see Take-Two Interactive say that they don't intend to open one. I mean, it would be a bit daft but... that hasn't stopped anyone else so far. No, the parent company of publishers 2K, Grand Theft Auto devs Rockstar, and Civilization crew Firaxis (among others) say that naw, they're more interested in entertaining than retailing. Which is probably sensible. If they turn around and make Red Dead Redemption 2 or GTA 6 exclusive to the 2Kash & Karry, I'll be sorely disappointed.
]]>Update: you betcha it's a hoax, Rockstar say.
"Rockstar Message: GTA VI Coming 2019" declares a GTA Online in-game notification that's started popping up intermittently. Rockstar's site doesn't mention Grand Theft Auto VI, no trailer announces it, and not even a rumour had hinted at it. You'd think Rockstar would make a bigger deal about announcing a new mega-blockbuster open-world murder simulator, wouldn't you? I would. Presumably this is just a hoax perpetrated by some nefarious hacker. For now: yes, those screenshots you're seeing of a GTA VI announcement are real (like that ↑ one I snapped myself today); but no, that announcement itself is almost certainly not real.
]]>It's awfully exciting. I've played squillions of first-person games and, thanks to mods, even first-person Grand Theft Auto. And yet, here I am, oohing and aahing like a weary traveller handed a cup of tea. The new trailer showing off Grand Theft Auto V's first-person mode is awfully exciting.
Not just that it's gorgeous - it is - but that it's surely a sign that Rockstar recognise GTA is a tourism simulator at heart, and intend to do away with all this guff about Johnny Crimes and his pals Ricky Murder and Ian Knives. GTA VI's final mission will be to find a good vegan breakfast on a foggy San Fierro morning, mark my words.
]]>OK, maybe not officially, but modders are ensuring that Grand Theft Auto IV continues to sprout bells and whistles like a million retail chains the second Christmas shopping season starts. It's become remarkably more attractive, gained entire landmasses, and received the most important upgrade of all: Iron Man. But that's not enough. It can never be enough. So modders have taken to grandly thieving Grand Theft Auto V's features and cramming them under GTA IV's hood. First up: cross-city character-swapping.
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