“Highly anticipated” may be an understatement if one wants to describe the fervor over anything related to the new installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. When a now-deleted Twitter account leaked the trailer of GTA VI, GTA developer Rockstar Games decided to move along and release the official trailer about 15 hours earlier than planned.
Sure enough, the official trailer shot past 60 million views within 12 hours — it’s now up to over 102 million views in a little over 30 hours.
Originally supposed to premiere on Tuesday, December 5 at 9 am PST, the official trailer showed the franchise’s first female protagonist, Lucia, and her boyfriend as they go on a rampage across the state of Leonida, home to the Miami-inspired Vice City. GTA VI promises to be the biggest, most immersive evolution of the game so far.
This new chapter, which follows 2013’s GTA V, will be released in 2025. While there’s no official date yet, Wall Street chatter says it will likely be around March, as “strongly implied” by Rockstar Games owner Take-Two Interactive’s (Nasdaq: TTWO) financial guidance.
This release is generally expected to be potentially massive. Deutsche Bank analyst Ben Soff, who agrees that an early 2023 release is likely, estimates that the new installment of the game will drive more than “$1 billion of incremental net bookings in its first year on the market.”
Take-Two’s stock value took a quick dip since the trailer release but is starting to bounce back. It’s still outperforming its peers on the Nasdaq, with an increase of 52% year to date.
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