A new report suggests that Grand Theft Auto 6 is heading to PC in the first quarter of 2027. GamesBeat published the claim, saying it spoke with four people familiar with Rockstar’s plans who asked to stay anonymous to avoid damaging their business relationships. The studio has not confirmed anything. According to the report, a Rockstar Games representative did not answer a request for comment before the article went live.
A window between January and March
If the information is accurate, the PC edition would land in the first three months of next year. Console owners, meanwhile, would get a head start of roughly two to five months, because GTA 6 is scheduled to arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 19 November.
Nothing about the PC date is official, so it is worth treating the report with a degree of caution. Claims built on anonymous sources have a habit of shifting as development schedules move around.
A far shorter wait than in the past
Rockstar’s track record makes a gap of just a few months look unusually tight. Grand Theft Auto 5 reached consoles in September 2013, and while the PC version was originally meant to arrive at the same time, it slipped to April 2015. Red Dead Redemption 2 followed a similar pattern: consoles on 26 October 2018, then PC more than a year later on 5 November 2019.
Earlier this year, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick dropped a hint that a PC release was on the way. He noted that his company tends not to put games out on every platform at once, but he also acknowledged how much appetite exists for the title among players who do not own a console. Take-Two owns Rockstar.
Leaks keep piling up
Word of the PC window arrives against a backdrop of persistent leaks. Someone going by the name CyberLeek threatened to publish a complete, playable build of the game over a weekend. That threat may amount to nothing, yet the leaks appear real enough to have prompted a formal statement from Rockstar. The company has also reportedly tried to subpoena Discord as part of an effort to work out who is behind them.
Why an early PC launch would make sense
Whenever the PC version shows up, getting it into players’ hands quickly would suit Rockstar’s commercial interests. A large share of the money GTA 5 has generated over the years comes from GTA Online rather than the single-player campaign alone, and the studio will want a broad player base in place before it launches the next iteration of its multiplayer world.
Twitch chief executive Dan Clancy said earlier this year that his company had spent a great deal of time talking with Rockstar about its plans and helping the studio think about how to engage creators. He predicted a big jump in interest around the launch of GTA 6, followed by an even larger one in 2027 when multiplayer goes live.
Questions the report leaves open
The report does not go into detail about which storefronts the PC version would appear on, or whether the game will support cross-play and cross-progression between platforms. Rockstar has stayed silent on those points too, so plenty of questions remain unanswered even if the timing turns out to be right.
A union dispute continues
Away from release dates, Rockstar Games and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain are taking part in a final tribunal hearing. The case relates to the sudden dismissal of 31 employees at Rockstar North a year ago, which the union has alleged formed part of an effort to weaken organised labour at the studio.
For now, the only firm date on the calendar is the console launch in November. The PC release stays a rumour until Rockstar says otherwise, and the studio has a long history of keeping quiet right up until it is ready to announce something. Players hoping for a quick PC turnaround have reason to be hopeful, but not yet reason to be certain.
Source: eurogamer.net