Rockstar releases first Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, set in Vice City

In early December 2023, Rockstar Games published the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, officially confirming the next main entry in its best-selling crime series. The studio had scheduled the reveal for 5 December, but a leak of the footage online forced it to post the video earlier than planned.

The trailer was set in Vice City, the series' fictional take on Miami, within the state of Leonida, a stand-in for Florida. It showed beach parties, car chases, heists and social-media-style clips of everyday life, and introduced a female lead, Lucia, alongside a male partner. Rockstar said the game would arrive in 2025 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no PC version announced at the time.

The announcement mattered because Grand Theft Auto V had launched in 2013 and went on to sell well over 100 million copies, leaving fans waiting a decade for a sequel. The trailer drew tens of millions of views on YouTube within a day, setting a record for a video's first 24 hours and turning GTA 6 into one of the most anticipated games ever. Its release date later slipped, which shaped the long wait that followed.