The GTA 6 Trailer Has Dropped, And Its Breaking Records

Good things come to those who wait—except in the age of video streaming, where content can sometimes arrive sooner than expected. In fact, Rockstar Games was forced to release the first trailer for its upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 early after it was leaked online on Monday evening.

The 90-second long teaser clip has been seen nearly 82 million times on YouTube as of Tuesday afternoon, while it received 8.3 million likes, and more than 681,000 comments—mostly praising the footage in the short clip.

According to data from GameIndustry.biz, the debut trailer for the forthcoming title—which gamers won’t get to play until sometime in 2025—reached millions of views quicker than any game trailer to date.

Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1

GTA 6’s trailer even outpaced the first preview clip for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which was posted on August 17, 2023, and nearly hit the 40 million market in just six and a half hours.

“The speed at which the GTA 6 reveal reached millions of views is a sign not only of how long people have been waiting for a new Grand Theft Auto—ten years and counting—but also of how good a job Rockstar has done in keeping its audience engaged via GTA Online,” explained James Batchelor, editor-in-chief for GamesIndustry.biz.

“Data shared with GamesIndustry.biz today showed that on Rockstar’s YouTube channel alone, it racked up 60 million views within 12 hours,” Batchelor said via an email. “By comparison, the first trailer for GTA 5 took 12 years to reach 96.8 million views—this trailer did half of that in less than 10 hours.”

Even the tweet on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, had received 11 million views and more than 350,000 likes. Though way down from the love the teaser tweet received last week, the audience was clearly primed for the trailer’s debut.

It Succeeded In Building The Buzz

As noted, it could still be almost two years until gamers actually get a chance to return to Vice City for more motor vehicle mayhem, yet, the audience liked what was shown in the minute-and-a-half-long clip.

“Grand Theft Auto has been an extremely popular franchise and, typically, high interest in the trailer means there is a lot of interest in the game and suggests a very successful launch,” said technology and video game industry analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.

“However, game reviews and advocacy can play an even bigger role long term so if gamers are disappointed in what they get and are vocal about it, that can kill demand,” Enderle warned.

Few Details Shared—But That Doesn’t Matter

The actual trailer didn’t reveal all that much, except that the game will be set in the old stomping ground of past titles in the franchise, and that we can expect a lot more of the same. Rockstar Games has long been able to deliver a satisfying experience without any danger of fixing what arguably is far from broken.

The comments on YouTube and X also reaffirmed that fans of the series are ready for more of the same.

“The reception has been overwhelmingly positive so far, with players keen to see an updated version of fan-favorite setting Vice City and Rockstar once again showing its prowess at creating densely populated and highly active virtual worlds,” added Batchelor. “This is set to be one of the biggest video games ever to release, and the hype will only ramp up as 2025 approaches.”