Publisher Take-Two Interactive may have just teased the release window for the next entry in the greatest game franchise of all time: Grand Theft Auto 6. It could be on the way as early as next year.
In a press release issued alongside its annual earnings report, Take-Two shared projections for the coming years, including a massive projection for fiscal 2025 and 2026. For context, fiscal 2025 will begin in April 2024:
Looking ahead, fiscal 2025 is a highly anticipated year for our business,” the statement said. “Over the past few years, we’ve prepared our business to release an incredibly robust pipeline of projects that we believe will take our business even further. success levels. In fiscal 2025, we plan to usher in this new era by launching several game-changing titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry and enable us to reach over $8 billion in net bookings and over $1 billion in unrestricted adjusted operating cash flow. We plan to maintain this momentum by delivering even stronger operating results in fiscal 2026 and beyond.
While Take-Two doesn’t explicitly name Grand Theft Auto here, it’s hard to imagine any other franchise doing that job for them. For one thing, Take-Two’s net bookings in the past fiscal year reached $5.3 billion – a yearly record. In particular, this record was achieved thanks to contributions from Zynga, which it acquired last year. Previously, Take-Two’s regular annual net bookings were around $3 billion and growing steadily – it took the acquisition of a major mobile developer to see them jump over $1 billion in l within a single year.
So to reach an $8 billion goal, Take-Two would need to make significant acquisitions, or release nearly double the number of games it historically has, or release at least one absolute monster of a game. Take-Two expects to do even better in revenue the following year, which seems impossible without something like GTA Online building on the foundation of an all-new GTA game to propel its revenue to an astronomical level. It’s hard to imagine another franchise, or even several new games combined, making those kinds of numbers.
I asked Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick about my theory on a call today before his results were announced, and he declined to confirm or deny it, noting that it’s not It’s not Take-Two’s practice to talk about specific, unannounced titles in earnings reports such as this.
Grand Theft Auto V remains the best-selling single game of all time and has consistently sold around five million units per quarter for the past few years. It hit that target again last quarter, bringing its total unit sales to 180 million, and GTA Online continues to be a major revenue driver for Take-Two. Developer Rockstar confirmed that GTA 6 was in active development last year, but has otherwise officially kept quiet about its progress. A massive leak late last year showed part of the game incomplete, but Zelnick told IGN a few months later that while it was an “emotional matter” for the developers, it didn’t. had no impact on the business.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.