GTA 6 Release Date Could Be As Early As 2023, Analyst Suggests

According to reports, Grand Theft Auto 6 is in development and might have a Fortnite-style evolving map, but when might the long-awaited game be released? According to one analyst's prediction, the next entry in Rockstar's popular series might be in the works for 2023 or 2024.

Take-Two, which owns Rockstar, said in its Zynga acquisition announcement this week that it would have a "compound annual growth rate" of 14% through FY2024. An analyst at the research company Jeffries told Axios there are "only a handful of titles" that have the power to give Take-Two confidence it could reach that, and one is believed to be a Rockstar game. Doug Creutz of Cowen & Company said this points to a "likely GTA 6 launch in FY24."

Take-Two's fiscal year 24 runs April 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024, so the suggestion is that GTA 6 would be released sometime in that period. Other reports have suggested GTA 6 might not release until 2025.

In 2021, Kotaku reported that Rockstar Games had begun work on its next game, a new entry in the GTA series. However, Rockstar Games has not confirmed this.

GTA V was originally released in 2013 on PS3 and Xbox 360 before coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One later on. It's sold more than 155 million copies across all platforms to date, and the open-world action game is headed to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in March 2022. Rockstar is also releasing a standalone edition of the game's popular GTA Online multiplayer mode, and it'll be free on PS5 for PS Plus subscribers for the first three months.

For more on GTA 6, check out GameSpot's roundup of all the big rumors.

Take-Two is paying $12.7 billion to acquire social games studio Zynga as part of the biggest acquisition in the history of video games by a large margin. The company has said there is now a "clear path" for releasing console and PC games on mobile, but it remains to be seen if GTA is headed to a smartphone anytime soon. Looking ahead, Take-Two said it expects to make about half of its annual revenue from mobile.