The fall season is just days away, which means GTA VI is set to release in about a year. The latest we have from Take-Two is that Rockstar’s highly anticipated game is slate to be released in fall 2025, contributing to what could be a stellar year for the publisher:
Our outlook reflects a narrowing of the window previously established by Rockstar Games from Calendar 2025 to Calendar Fall 2025 for Grand Theft Auto VI. We are highly confident that Rockstar Games will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience, and our expectations for the title’s commercial impact continue to increase. Looking ahead, we believe our Company is poised to achieve new levels of success, and we expect to deliver sequential growth in Net Bookings for Fiscal Year 2025, 2026 and 2027.
GTA VI is, of course, the star of an incredible lineup from Take-Two for 2025, which also includes the next mainline entries in the Civilization and Mafia franchises, not to mention Borderlands 4 and possibly even Judasthe long-awaited new game from Ken Levine. In this article, however, we’re going to focus on why GTA VI will be absolutely critical not only for Rockstar and Take-Two, but also for Sony, specifically in regards to the upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro console.
The anticipation for the next mainline installment of the Grand Theft Auto series can hardly be overstated. The previous entry, Grand Theft Auto V, is arguably the best-selling game of all time, with over 200 million units sold. Sure, Minecraft technically sold even more, but there are numerous caveats: it was released two years before GTA V; it’s cheaper; it’s available on many more platforms; and it also targets a much wider audience, which includes children.
Rockstar Games has rightfully gained a massive fan base thanks to masterpieces like GTA and Red Dead Redemption, and it’s been a long time since we’ve had a game from them. GTA V was originally released in September 2013, and Red Dead Redemption 2 was released in October 2018. So it wasn’t too surprising to see the first trailer for GTA VI breaking YouTube records in terms of views.
If we take a moment to delve into why Rockstar titles are so popular, a big reason is that they move the needle forward when it comes to the open-world genre. They’ve been doing this since Grand Theft Auto 3, which showed the entire industry what was possible with the PlayStation 2 hardware, and their most recent games are no different. Red Dead Redemption 2 itself is still unmatched in some areas, even when compared to more recent open-world titles.
However, there is a flip side. Rockstar games have historically struggled on the performance side precisely because the developer always tries to cram as many technological advances as possible into the available hardware. Grand Theft Auto VI is unlikely to be any different in that area.
As such, gamers will need the most powerful hardware to get the best experience when it comes to smoothness and definition. With Red Dead Redemption 2, the Xbox One X deliver this with a clear advantage in both rendering resolution and frame rate stability over the less powerful PS4 Pro. However, this time around, Microsoft doesn’t seem interested in delivering a mid-generation console refresh, betting everything on the next generation (which they claim will offer the biggest performance leap ever).
With a PC version of GTA VI unlikely to materialize for at least a year and a half after its console debut, the best way to experience Lucia and her partner’s story will be on the PlayStation 5 Pro. Even though it’s true that Sony’s $700 console cannot deliver 60 frames per secondit will likely offer a performance mode of around 40-45 FPS that takes advantage of variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to deliver a much smoother experience than 30 FPS.
The PS5 Pro remains a niche console with its high price tag, but that niche will still spend what Sony is asking to get the best possible experience for major games — starting with GTA VI. Sony is well aware of this and will likely push to make a Grand Theft Auto VI PS5 Pro bundle when the game finally launches next fall.