GTA VI’s first trailer will drop December 5, a year after huge leak

Rockstar Games has announced the date and time when it will debut the first-ever trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI: December 5, 2023, at 9 a.m. ET.

pic.twitter.com/BguwiJokQt

— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) December 1, 2023

GTA VI has been a decade in the making; its predecessor, GTA V, was released in 2013. For most of that time, we didn’t know for sure if another game was coming. Rockstar finally confirmed that GTA VI was in the works in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Rockstar was working on the GTA franchise in other ways, like remastering the first three games and bundling them into a collection: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. That was released in 2021, but complaints about bugs and visual glitches plagued the launch. Then, in July 2022, Rockstar said it would put plans for other remasters (like Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV) on hold to focus the bulk of its efforts on GTA VI.

Then, GTA VI was the victim of one of the biggest leaks in video game history. In September 2022, the user ‘teapotuberhacker’ uploaded a 3GB file with 90 videos of GTA VI to the GTAForums.

Not that there was much doubt, but I’ve confirmed with Rockstar sources that this weekend’s massive Grand Theft Auto VI leak is indeed real. The footage is early and unfinished, of course. This is one of the biggest leaks in video game history and a nightmare for Rockstar Games

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) September 18, 2022

Rockstar’s official response was: “We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. Our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned and we remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations. We will update everyone again soon and, of course, we will properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready.”

Speculation about the leaked footage began immediately, with many people criticizing the graphics in particular. However, MobileSyrup’s Bradly Shankar argues that the leak only emphasizes that video game developers are too secretive about their ongoing projects, leading to misunderstandings about the development process and a “mythical” attitude surrounding it.

"Graphics are the first thing finished in a video game"

Here's a Thunderjaw from an early build of Horizon: Zero Dawn pic.twitter.com/Xq6fw5fS0e

— Cian Maher (@cianmaher0) September 20, 2022

Eventually, the person behind the leak was revealed to be Arion Kurtaj, a teenager from London and a member of Lapsus$, a hacking group. At the time of the GTA hack, Kurtaj was already on bail for allegedly hacking tech company Nvidia; he accomplished the whole thing in a hotel room with a phone, keyboard, mouse, and Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Now, more than a year later, it seems that Rockstar is finally ready to show us their own first version of GTA VI.

Header image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Rockstar