New details of latest game in controversial series released

The previous version of Grand Theft Auto series is the biggest-selling entertainment product in history, generating nearly $8 billion in revenue

Rockstar will release a teaser trailer for the next installment in its hugely-popular Grand Theft Auto series in December, the gaming giant confirmed on Wednesday, in what is expected to be one of the most expensive entertainment products ever made.

“We are very excited to let you know that in early December, we will release the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto,” Rockstar president Sam Houser said in a statement posted to social media. “We look forward to many more years of sharing these experiences with you,” he added of the release of the trailer, which coincides with the company’s 25th anniversary.

A release date for ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ is expected to be confirmed in December, some 20 months after Rockstar formally revealed it was working on the latest episode to its hugely-popular series. Critics of the GTA franchise have frequently cited it as glorifying violence, including a mission in the fifth game where players were compelled to torture a character in order to receive information.

The fifth game in the franchise, released a decade ago, has sold more than 185 million copies worldwide and quickly became the world’s fastest-selling game, taking in an estimated $800 million in its first 24 hours. Rockstar and its parent company, Take-Two, have reported more than $7.7 billion in earnings from Grand Theft Auto Five since then, making it – by far – the biggest-selling entertainment product of all time.

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Take-Two’s share value surged by almost 10% in premarket trading on Wednesday following the announcement.

Speculation has suggested that the game is to be released before the end of 2024 after Take-Two declared projected earnings of $8 billion in financial statements for next year, indicating that its expected income from GTA6 will dwarf even the previous iteration in the series.

While neither Rockstar or Take-Two have commented on the financials associated with the upcoming release, reports online have suggested that the game could have a budget as high as $2 billion – a figure significantly higher than any movie ever made.

“In 1998, Rockstar Games was founded on the idea that video games could come to be as essential to culture as any other form of entertainment,” Houser wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.

Several details of the game are already known, owing to an unprecedented hack of the notoriously secretive gaming company’s servers in 2022, which led to the conviction of two British teenagers for leaking unfinished content online. The game is to be set in Vice City, a fictionalized version of Miami, and will feature a female protagonist for the first time in the franchise.