GTA 6 launch – live: Countdown to pre-orders as fans await Thursday

At long last, more than two and a half years after Rockstar Games unveiled the first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, it’s almost time for Lucia and Jason to tear through the streets of Vice City.

Pre-orders for the long-awaited game will finally go live on Thursday. With millions expected to rush to secure a copy, UK retailers are no doubt preparing for one of the biggest gaming launches in history.

While Rockstar has yet to reveal exactly what time pre-orders will go live, let alone how much the game will cost – something that has already received its share of speculation itself – there are still plenty of things we don’t yet know.

We'll be bringing you all the latest news, rumours and updates as we count down to Thursday, including retailer listings, pricing leaks and speculation over when the third GTA 6 trailer could finally drop.

GTA6 pre-orders live

• When will GTA 6 pre-orders go live?
• When is the GTA 6 release date?
• How much could GTA 6 cost?
• When will the GTA 6 trailer 3 drop?
• GTA 6's map vs GTA 5

GTA 6 map vs GTA 5

Leonida is Rockstar's fictional take on Florida, with Vice City at the centre, returning as the main location. But while Vice City is the main location, GTA 6 is much bigger than a city map. The state of Leonida looks vast, with plenty to explore outside the city.

The game includes locations like the Leonida Keys – a tropical island chain – and Grassrivers, a sprawling swamp region. There's Port Gellhorn, a faded coastal town with run-down shops and motels, and Ambrosia, which is dominated by a sugar refinery and a biker gang. Then there’s Mount Kalaga, a mountainous rural area in the north.

Compared to GTA 5's Los Santos and Blaine County, GTA 6 looks several times larger and more diverse. There is even speculation that the inclusion of Mount Kalaga and references to Gloriana (a possible stand-in for neighbouring Georgia) could mean the game expands beyond Leonida itself.

When will the GTA 6 trailer 3 drop?

When Rockstar dropped the GTA 6 pre-order date last week, the games developer also dropped a teaser. Except it wasn’t the trailer fans were all hoping for. It was a 30-second reveal of the cover art.

More than a year on from the release of trailer 2, a third trailer is nowhere to be seen. But with pre-order day looming, we’re all expecting Rockstar to release fresh footage to coincide with the launch.

Nothing has been confirmed by Rockstar, of course, but with GTA 6 launching on 19 November, there's still plenty of time for Lucia and Jason to make another appearance.

What's with all the fuss over the GTA 6 price?

Despite being asked numerous times about the price of GTA 6 over the years, Take-Two bosses have refused to be drawn on revealing how much it will cost.

Before the Portuguese retailer’s listings leaked, insiders suggested the game could cost up to $150 (£120) due to its reported $1bn to $2bn budget. After all, Rockstar would need to recoup the costs somehow.

To me, that seems unlikely. Although the prices of games are rising, with Nintendo notoriously selling Mario Kart World for £75 at launch and Microsoft bumping up the prices of Xbox games, will Take-Two really sell GTA 6 above the £100 mark? We’ll just have to wait and see.

How much could GTA 6 cost?

Over the weekend, a Portuguese retailer Fnac listed five different editions of GTA 6 online. The cheapest edition of the game was listed at €89.99 (£78), but there were also listings for €99.99 (£87), €109.99 (£95), €119.99 (£104) and €199.99 (£173).

Fans have been speculating that the listing for £78 will be the standard edition, while the priciest might be a collector's edition.

However, reputable insider billbil-kun has since poured cold water onto those prices, claiming the European Article Number (EAN) codes don't match Take-Two's usual products. With pre-orders opening on Thursday, we shouldn't have long to wait to find out whether any of these figures are close to the real thing.

Looks like many people (including R*) are trying to disturb my holidays

Those SKUs are just placeholders bcz EAN codes (like UPC in US) aren’t belonging to Take2 traditional games prefixes

So those prices are random ones

(& Sorry, w/o my PC, can’t do much to get real prices) pic.twitter.com/E7982km1lh

— billbil-kun (@billbil_kun) June 21, 2026

When is the GTA 6 release date?

While you can pre-order the game this week,Grand Theft Auto 6 will officially launch on 19 November 2026 for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S,

Rockstar originally delayed the game, which was supposed to launch in 2025. At the time, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said the extra development time was needed because of the game's scale and complexity, but that affording Rockstar more time was “a worthy investment”.

When will GTA 6 pre-orders go live?

Good morning!

This week, Rockstar Games will finally open GTA 6 pre-orders, and to say fans can't wait would be an understatement.

Pre-orders will go live on 25 June on all the major digital storefronts and third-party retailers, though it’s unclear whether there will be any special editions, or what pre-order bonuses will be available.

While Rockstar Games hasn’t announced exactly what time pre-orders will open, I’ve got two hunches – at midnight, or sometime in the afternoon. The cover art and pre-order date was announced at 2pm BST last week, and Rockstar’s pre-orders for Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC went live at 4pm BST.

You can already add it to your wish list on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Store.