GTA 6 release date news – will PS5 and Xbox Scarlett Grand Theft Auto be set in Vice City?
GRAND THEFT AUTO 6 is on the way, but where it's set or who you'll play as are closely guarded secrets.
Plenty of leaks as well as common sense have revealed it's in the works, with the latest scuttlebutt pointing towards a return to the Miami-inspired Vice City for GTA6.
GTA 6 release date – when is Grand Theft Auto 6 out?
Best guess at the moment, based on all the information we have and some educated guesses suggest Autumn 2021 is the earliest we're likely to see it.
Now that the stellar Red Dead Redemption 2 is out the door, Rockstar's studios are clearly working flat-out on the next Grand Theft Auto game.
While some staff will be continuing to work on Red Dead Online and quite are few are still updating GTA Online, Rockstar is also staffing up across the world for a new project.
The problem is that it takes years to build a game as expansive as Grand Theft Auto, and GTA 6 is likely to be the biggest yet.
It used to be the case that GTA games would arrive just a couple of years apart, but the gap between 2004's GTA San Andreas and 2008's GTA 4 changed all that.
Then fans had to wait even longer for 2013's GTA 5, which only landed on PC as a re-release in 2015.
A rough five-year timeline means that we might have expected to see GTA 5 in 2018, but the sheer scale of Red Dead Redemption 2 meant that was never going to happen.
GTA 5 was first announced in late 2011, but the game didn't actually go on sale until 2013.
A 2020 reveal for GTA 6 and 2021 release is hence the most plausible.
That means that even though the game is some time away, we could well get our first glimpse of the game soon, especially given the lack of other announced projects from Rockstar.
If it is, as rumoured, being developed exclusively for next-generation platforms then we'd expect a reveal around the time more details on those consoles come out next year.
E3 2020 is likely to be awash with new PS5 titles and Xbox Scarlett games, with both consoles expected to release at the end of 2020.
The launch of both new consoles is likely to be a relatively muted affair, similar to the launch of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, compared to previous generations.
Microsoft has said that Halo Infinite, it's biggest launch title for the Xbox 2, will be coming to Xbox One as well.
PlayStation have said the PS4 will be providing most of its profits for years to come too.
Given GTA VI will be expected to sell in the hundreds of millions to recoup the huge investment being made in it, it seems unlikely to be released until both new consoles are the new 'normal', and no long a premium product just for the most hardcore of gamers.
Anticipation of a new GTA title would definitely drive sales of the new consoles, though - then it can be released once they've found their way into enough homes.
That is complicated by Google Stadia, however, which promises to let anyone play games on top-quality hardware without shelling out for it.
GTA VI hasn't been confirmed for the platform, but Rockstar have been confirmed as a partner by Google.
GTA 6 news, rumours and gameplay leaks
Grand Theft Auto has happily settled into its role as a crime-heavy open-world action adventure game, and has proved immensely popular with fans.
And according to Rockstar studio president Leslie Benzies, there's no shortage of ideas.
"We've got about 45 years worth of ideas we want to do. We don't know what GTA 6 will be, but we've got some ideas."
Speaking to Digital Trends, Benzies revealed that they'd like to create a GTA game where players can explore an entire country, stocked with previous Grand Theft Auto cities.
"Of course at some point we would like to have one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favourite areas.
"In that context, re-imagining Vice City would be very interesting."
That ties in very nicely with recent rumours which suggest a Vice City based game, but with missions in other cities.
A Narcos-inspired GTA6 where players return to GTA V's Liberty City as well as some new locations has been the subject of several leaks.
A separate report from gadget blog TechRadar said that Rockstar visited Tokyo to "assess its potential for a full GTA game, but ultimately pulled the plug on the idea".
Some say Rockstar should return to its London roots – the UK studio launched a 1999 GTA get set in the capital, but GTA 6 borrowing the same setting is unlikely.
In an interview with the Guardian, GTA 5 writer Dan Houser said: "I think for us, my gut feeling is, GTA London was cool for the time, but games were more limited then.
"These days I think we would love to set a game in the UK, set in London, whatever, but I don't know if it would be a GTA game."
"I think there are plenty of great stories we could tell about the UK, great environments to showcase, great gameplay mechanics that could have a UK bent to them – I just don't think it would be a GTA necessarily."
Lots of fans have also called for the introduction of a female playable character, which would be a first for major entries to the Grand Theft Auto series.
Grand Theft Auto 5 had three playable characters, but all of them were men.
But Houser says GTA 6 could finally introduce a player-controlled female protagonist.
"In the future, could we do a game with a lead female character? Of course. We just haven't found the right game for it yet, but it's one of the things that we always think about.
"It didn't feel natural for this game, but definitely for the right game in the future – with the right themes, it could be fantastic.
"But for GTA V, this was the organic thing that came up, these were the characters that would display the themes we wanted to think about."
One of the first potential leaks we've seen comes from YouTube channel The Know.
It claims that an "inside source" said that GTA 6 would be set in Vice City, and that the game is being developed under the codename "Project Americas".
The video report also suggested that the game would arrive in 2022, and would feature the series' first female lead character.
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However, there's no way of verifying any of these reports, so it's worth taking a pinch of salt for now.
That's all we know about Grand Theft Auto 6 so far, but check back here regularly for updates on the latest GTA 6 news and rumours.
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