On 15 October, Rockstar Games released the launch trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, its last major promotional push before the game reaches PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on 19 November.
A launch trailer is usually a final reminder rather than a revelation: it confirms the date, restates the mood and gives audiences one more reason to pre-order.
Rockstar's 90-second effort does all of that. It also fills in gaps about its two leads, Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, that the first two trailers and August's 26-minute extended look left open.
Like the earlier trailers, the footage is cinematic rather than gameplay. It is labelled as captured on PS5, which reflects Rockstar's marketing partnership with Sony.
The official description sets out the premise plainly: Jason and Lucia "have always known the deck is stacked against them", and when "an easy score goes wrong", they are pulled into a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida.
A soldier who left on bad terms
The trailer opens with Jason narrating over footage of him buffing a boat at Brian's Marina alongside his friend Cal. "I got in some trouble in the army, didn't leave on the best of terms," he says. "They don't give loans, anything, to people like me." It puts money trouble at the centre of the story.
Later shots add detail. Jason wears a US Army T-shirt bearing the word "Marauder" and a reference to North Fort Law, a military base long-time fans will recognise from the very first Grand Theft Auto. The word matches the skull-and-parachute tattoo seen on his arm in earlier footage. IGN suggests it is a nod to Merrill's Marauders, the Second World War unit whose lineage continues in the 75th Ranger Regiment.
The most intriguing question is when some of these scenes take place. Jason wades through water at night in infiltration gear, night-vision goggles on his head and a suppressed rifle in hand, and later leaps from a helicopter.
Analysts note these could be flashbacks to his service or present-day jobs carried out with former comrades. GamesRadar+ points out that Jason's hair changes from long to short across the trailer, which strengthens the case for more than one timeline.
A reptile in the night-time water shot that resembles a monitor lizard, an invasive species present in Florida. If Rockstar does use flashbacks, it would be a notable structural choice for a series that has largely told its stories in chronological order.
Bound by love, monitored by law
Lucia's situation is just as telling. In an intimate shower scene, she wears an electronic ankle monitor, which suggests parole or house arrest after her time in prison. IGN speculates that this could tie into limits on exploration early in the story, though Rockstar has confirmed nothing.
Whatever her starting point, Lucia is no passenger princess. She fires a grenade launcher at pursuing police while hanging from a cargo net beneath a helicopter, leaps from a car onto a commercial airliner and appears in a bank vault surrounded by burning banknotes.
The emotional core of the trailer arrives late on, when she asks, "Are we gonna be okay?" Jason replies: "We stuck together through everything. We just gotta get through it."
The exchange presents the game less as a rags-to-riches fantasy than as a story about two people trying to survive together. The closing shots, which feature the gold dress from Trailer 2 and a leap from a rooftop into a pool, suggest the pair's plans will not hold for long.
Leonida itself looks crowded. Bank robber Raul Bautista bullies a man at a construction site, Vice City police officer Mendez looks set to be an antagonist, and the rap duo Real Dimez make a brief appearance.
A biplane advertising "DacityCoin", apparently a cryptocurrency parody, flies over the beach; IGN reads it as a possible scam storyline. Elsewhere, a load dragged by a helicopter smashes through a skyscraper's windows, showing off the game's destruction detail, and a sweating gym-goer offers a glimpse of the much-discussed sweat system.
The trailer is set to "Flower in a Hurricane", a new single by the French duo Justice, who are also composing the game's original score, featuring Tame Impala, SZA and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. The anticipation is nothing new.
GTA VI's first trailer drew more than 93 million YouTube views in 24 hours in December 2023, a record for a non-music video, and Rockstar told The Hollywood Reporter that Trailer 2 passed 475 million views across platforms in its first day.
Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, has sold more than 230 million units, and the franchise as a whole has sold nearly 475 million. Its publisher, Take-Two, expects up to $8.2 billion in net bookings this financial year, largely on the strength of GTA VI.
More than 13 years after GTA V, the finish line is in sight. On 19 November, players will find out whether Jason and Lucia make it out alive.