Rockstar could announce Grand Theft Auto VI this week

Rockstar Games has been tipped to announce Grand Theft Auto VI some time this week.

In what could very well be the most hotly anticipated video game launch of the year, if not the decade, Rockstar’s latest epic crime sim could be revealed very soon indeed. Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier claims to have learned from “people familiar with its plans” that the company plans to announce its new game as early as this week.

Beyond that, Schreier claims that Rockstar will publish a trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI (or GTA 6 as it’s informally known) next month, which will very handily double as a celebration of Rockstar’s 25th anniversary.

For fans of the series, this has been a long time coming. As of last month, it’s been 10 years since the launch of Grand Theft Auto V. That’s essentially two console generations ago, with the game launching on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Of course, it’s since made its way to most platforms under the sun, and has proved a staggering success. The term ‘long tail’ doesn’t really cut it, with more than 185 million copies sold at a relatively consistent rate across that decade-long span.

It’s the second-best selling video game of all time behind Minecraft, and as the original report points out, that game had the benefit of being able to be played on a smartphone.

The wider series was instrumental in establishing the open world gameplay template that we’re all still largely living with today. Back in 2001, Grand Theft Auto III introduced the very first 3D version of what had previously been a quirky top-down franchise made in Britain.

Its arrival single-handedly heralded a new era of freewheeling mayhem. We’re very excited to see where this huge series takes us next.