‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ trailer breaks records in its first 24 hours

Gamers got their first look at the eagerly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI 15 hours earlier than they expected. And they looked again and again and again.

The buzzy trailer, which wasn’t expected to drop until Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. ET, got released hours earlier due to a leak, and has shattered online records with more than 80 million views and counting. It quickly became the most-viewed nonmusic video in the 24 hours following its release, blowing past the previous record of 46 million, set by Mr. Beast in August.  

It also has collected well over 8 million likes from viewers, besting the previous 24-hour record of 4.1 million, which was held by the Avengers: Infinity War trailer. Now, all eyes are on whether it can bump “Butter” by BTS from the most-watched in the first 24 hours time slot. The Korean boy band captured 108 million views in that time period.

The trailer teases a Bonnie and Clyde story set in the game’s Vice City, a stand-in for Miami. It also gives a 2025 release date, later than many were expecting.

The decision to launch the trailer came after a leaked version began appearing on Twitter/X on Monday afternoon and quickly spread as eager fans tried to get any information they could about the game.

That’s not the first time GTA VI has suffered a leak. Footage of the game’s alpha build has also found its way online; and last year, a hack resulted in several details of the game being released, a shocking event given how tight a ship Rockstar typically runs. But even if it wasn’t the event Rockstar wanted it to be, the trailer is seemingly everything people were hoping for.

Set to Tom Petty’s “Love is a Long Road,” the trailer shows the two protagonists—Jason and Lucia—committing heists and living in a much more modern Vice City than the one players were introduced to 21 years ago.

TikTok (or its in-game equivalent) is pervasive. Police wear body cams. What appears to be a stereotypical “Florida Man” makes an appearance. There are old men in thongs. Women in thongs. Basically . . . there are a lot of thongs in this trailer. Oh, and alligators, which is a safe bet Rockstar will incorporate them into the game in grizzly fashion.

The trailer did not announce any timeframe beyond the year. The game will be released on the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S, Rockstar said in a press release. For now, no PC version has been announced.

This will be the first Grand Theft Auto game that was made without Rockstar cofounder Dan Houser, who was responsible for the scripts for other games in the series. He left the company in 2020 and has since announced his next project, which will initially focus on a podcast and comic books.

Fan reaction was positive to the trailer itself, though there was predictable disappointment about the 2025 date.

The predecessor to this title, Grand Theft Auto V, has been the biggest seller of the past 10 years (and the game continues to be a cash generator for publisher Take-Two Interactive Software). In the first 24 hours of its release in 2011, the game generated more than $800 million in worldwide revenue. Life to date, it has sold more than 150 million copies. The franchise as a whole has sold over 355 million games.

Part of GTA V’s longevity has been the introduction of an online mode that has been a major revenue driver, helping Take-Two regularly beat earnings estimates.