GTA 6 "will be great" promises former Rockstar boss
Dan is not in the House(r).
The upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 is certainly one of the most highly anticipated games of all time, and for good reason. Both trailer 1 and trailer 2 look gorgeous, and set the stage for the first GTA chapter in 13 years ahead of its release in 2026 – provided it isn’t delayed again, of course.
Millions of fans loved Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar’s previous single-player title, and prior Grand Theft Auto games have been cherished by many across console generations.
But who is to say if GTA 6 will actually be any good?
Well, apparently, Dan Houser, the former Rockstar boss who left in 2020 and isn't actually involved with the upcoming mega game, that's who.
Save for the very first one, Houser has had a hand in just about every Grand Theft Auto game to date after he and brother Sam Jones took over from creators David Jones and Mike Dailly. It’s fair to say, then, that he would know a thing or two about your ol’ Grand Theft Auto.
But despite his wealth of knowledge, Houser confirmed in an interview with IGN's Ryan McCaffrey at LA Comic Con 2025 that he has not been called upon to help with GTA 6. He explained: "They're always a new story. It's not going to be a story I wrote or a character set that I developed, but I think it's going to be exciting. The game will be great, I'm sure."
McCaffery then asks: “Is it going to feel weird to you for GTA to come out on May 26th of [2026], and for you to not have like every square inch of it seared into your brain, the first time you sit down to actually play it?”
After a big “Um”, Houser agreed that it will be strange. He then said that “it’s a great privilege to have worked on something that big”, adding that he wrote “the last ten or eleven [Grand Theft Auto’s]” and that the “world’s probably had enough GTA” from him.
Whether or not that holds true remains to be seen, of course.
GTA 6 isn't due to release for a good while yet, but the game will likely sell gangbusters and recoup development costs, even if the story isn’t the best we’ve had in the series, with much of the appeal lying in getting up to all sorts of hijinks and police chases.
Nostalgia will also play a huge factor, with the game returning to Vice City, a location that hasn’t been seen in a new game since 2006’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.
We could also see old characters return from the original Vice City, alongside the slew of GTA 6 characters, including protagonists Jason and Lucia.
If nothing else, driving around the state of Leonida, comparing the graphics between GTA 5 and GTA 6 whilst listening to the GTA 6 soundtrack on the car radio (and maybe even on foot with headphones) will probably be worth the price of entry alone.
There’s also the next incarnation of GTA Online, which has proved to be massively profitable for Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive, and is said to potentially feature almost 100 players in one session, but could also require age verification in the UK owing to the Online Safety Act.
But, if for whatever reason you can’t pick up GTA 6 on launch, you will maybe be able to doomscroll a GTA 6 companion app, which is rumoured to be in development.
Read more on GTA:
- Full list of GTA 5 cheat codes
- Full list of GTA Vice City cheat codes
- Full list of GTA San Andreas cheats
- Full list of GTA 3 cheat codes
- Full list of GTA 4 cheat codes
- GTA 6 release date - all the latest rumours
- Fastest car in GTA 5 - how to get it
- GTA 5 mods - all our favourites
- GTA 5 voice actors - the full cast
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Authors
Cole Luke is a freelance journalist and video producer who contributes to RadioTimes.com's Gaming section. He also has bylines for Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, Network N and more.
