GTA 6: New budget report hints at 2023/24 release for next Grand Theft Auto

Budget forecast analysis had correctly predicted the release window for Red Dead Redemption 2

Grand Theft Auto VI will not hit shelves until 2023 or 2024, suggest newly released marketing plans from publisher Take-Two Interactive.

The latest SEC filing from Take-Two, the company which owns Rockstar Games, alludes to a huge increase in marketing budget in the year 2024.

The last time the company scheduled a comparable increase in marketing expenditure was around the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar’s other huge game franchise.

While in a previous filing, Take-Two had allocated $78.1m (£63.4m) to the 2023 fiscal year, a new budget of $89.2m (£72.4m) has been arranged for 2024.

Surrounding years indicate budgets that vary between $11.8m (£9.6m) and $25.5m (£20.7m); there is no doubt that 2024 is a serious anomaly.

Another explanation would be the release of a brand new intellectual property, but with seven years already having passed since the release of GTA V, it would make sense for Rockstar to release a follow-up within the next few years.

If the budgetary increase is indeed related to Grand Theft Auto VI, the report places its release window as arriving between April 2023 and March 2024.

Industry analyst Jeff Cohen responded to the news by writing: “We are not sure how much we should be reading into this shift, but we would note that this disclosure accurately predicted the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 prior to that game’s announcement.”