Fan Reaction

2:43 Grand Theft Auto 6 was one of the most awaited games ever made long before anyone saw it, and it won Most Anticipated Game at The Game Awards and Most Wanted Game at the Golden Joysticks in both 2024 and 2025. When Trailer 1 arrived on Dec 4, 2023, Blind Wave's hosts, like millions of others, worked it out as it played: "this has got to be Florida", "two main characters", "trust", and then the title card, Vice City. The first trailer set a first-day record for a non-music YouTube video, and Trailer 2's 475 million views in a day set another (see Trailers).

Quick facts

Trailer 1

3:55 What struck Blind Wave was how full the world looked next to Grand Theft Auto V: a beach there might have two or three people on it, here it is covered, and the streets are busy with people getting out of cars and moving about.

8:30 The date at the end was 2025, which then felt a long way off. The wait turned out to be longer still. Meanwhile a meme took hold: whenever something unlikely happened, it had happened "before GTA 6".

"It's not coming out"

0:32 The second delay, on Nov 6, 2025, pushed the game a year away again. iShowSpeed read Rockstar's statement to his stream and then shouted "It's not coming out" over and over, imagining himself married with children by the time it did.

2:10 He predicted a push to 2027, and closed on a hope many shared: "I really hope I stay alive for GTA 6."

9:41 Others were resigned. One streamer in Banana's compilation repeated the old line that "a delayed game is eventually good, a rush game is forever bad", before admitting he was frustrated that his hopes kept being raised and dashed.

14:09 Another pointed out that the whole industry had been moving its release dates to avoid the game, and warned that after two delays, if it did not arrive polished, "that's going to be bad".

The Extended Look

0:38 The first gameplay, on Aug 27, 2026, crashed Netflix and Twitch as people rushed to watch it. The sketch channel Man Carrying Thing caught the mood of long-time fans: seeing the footage at last was "less like getting a present than returning from a long painful odyssey".

3:12 "Graphically, it's ridiculous," said Luke Stephens, pointing out that it was all captured on a base PlayStation 5, and praising the ray-traced lighting, the animation and the seamless moves between play and cutscenes.

3:56 He also read the footage as a slower, more methodical game, "much more Red Dead 2 than GTA 5", with cars that need fuel and cars that cannot all be stolen the same way.

1:11 penguinz0 wanted more structure than a montage of gameplay and story fragments, but was glad to see so much side content, especially backyard wrestling. Afterwards, he said, nothing he learned put him off the game.

How many watched

The Extended Look reached 31.1 million views on Netflix from Aug 27 to Aug 30, 2026, leading Netflix's English-language film list in 87 of 93 tracked countries. Reaction streams peaked at 3,970,738 viewers across 9,038 streamers and 5,227,798 hours watched, the biggest gaming stream of 2026 up to then by Streams Charts' count. Spanish streamer IlloJuan led with 233,520 peak viewers, ahead of Rubius and iShowSpeed. Cloudflare's figures in the same report have traffic to Rockstar's own website up 172 percent worldwide.

What people did not like

19:57 Luke Stephens' main nitpick was the weapon wheel, which looked to him like a placeholder next to everything else. penguinz0 disliked the zoomed-in GPS map (see Cars and Driving) and found Jason bland, a view PC Gamer's Christopher Livingston shared, while Lucia won people over (see Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos).

21:20 The bigger argument was over frame rate: the game runs at 30 frames per second on consoles. Stephens expected it to be a dealbreaker for some, who would wait for a PC version, but said some of the best games he has played ran at 30. See Development.

Jason split people more than the headline suggests. PC Gamer collected complaints such as "He seems heavily sedated", but also defenders who read him as emotionally detached after military service, and who recalled that players also doubted Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2's trailers.

Other complaints followed the business side: content kept for the Ultimate Edition, a physical edition with no disc in the box, and a six-hour Netflix head start for the Extended Look, which one fan on X called "unbelievably scummy" when it was announced. See Editions and Pre-orders and An Extended Look. The anticipation had a darker side too: scammers used it to spread malware and fake offers of early access.

Polls and pre-orders

What fans say and what they buy are hard to compare, and none of these is a measure of the whole audience.

• Waiting for PC: in a PC Gamer reader poll, 39% said they would wait for a PC version and 28% had no interest (Jun 29, 2026). PC Gamer's readers are PC players, so that is no sample of console buyers.
• Paying for early access: in a hypothetical poll by Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming, with more than 18,000 votes, 48.5% said they would pay $100 for seven days' early access and 51.5% would not (Jan 14, 2026). "It's crazy that 50% of you are lying," he replied.
• Pre-orders: Take-Two gives no totals. Its chief executive, Strauss Zelnick, called the level "unprecedented and astonishing" on the August 2026 earnings call, then added: "we just don't know how it'll translate into sales." Sensor Tower's outside estimate is roughly 4.55 million copies after a 436% jump following the Extended Look; Take-Two has confirmed no figure.

The last weeks

0:01 By the fall of 2026 the wait had become a story of its own. On Oct 3, Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update introduced the game as "so highly anticipated that all other video games have pushed their release dates to avoid competing with it this November", except one, and set Marcello Hernández as Jason against Mikey Day as Link from the Ocarina of Time remake, which comes out on Switch 2 two weeks earlier. "Are y'all ready to go to Vice City and steal some cars or what?"

Not everything landed. Rockstar's $400 collector's box, built around a cartoon alligator from an in-game TV show and without the game, was met with complaints that it had nothing of Jason and Lucia in it; see Editions and Pre-orders.

Frequently asked questions

How did fans react to GTA 6's gameplay reveal? Mostly with awe at the visuals and crowds, and argument over the details. The Extended Look drew 31.1 million Netflix views in four days; praise went to the looks and Lucia, and complaints to Jason, the weapon wheel and 30 frames per second.

Why are people saying "before GTA 6"? It is a running joke from the long wait for Grand Theft Auto 6: whenever something unlikely happens, people say it happened "before GTA 6".

Why were fans angry about Netflix and GTA 6? Grand Theft Auto 6's Extended Look played on Netflix six hours before YouTube, so fans complained it was paywalled behind a subscription for that time.

Why do some fans dislike Jason in GTA 6? Critics of Grand Theft Auto 6's Jason call his voice flat and the character dull, while others defend him as an emotionally detached former soldier. All of this comes from a video, as the game is not out until Nov 19, 2026.

Are GTA 6 pre-orders high? Take-Two calls them "unprecedented and astonishing" but has published no number for Grand Theft Auto 6, and says it does not know how they will translate into sales. Figures in circulation are outside estimates.

Are fans waiting for a PC version of GTA 6? Some are: 39% in a PC Gamer reader poll said they would wait. Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on PlayStation 5 and Xbox on Nov 19, 2026.

Sources

• Grand Theft Auto 6, Wikipedia (awards, records, the "before GTA 6" meme, scams, backlash)
• Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, Wikipedia (reception)
• GTA 6's gameplay reveal pulled in 3.97 million viewers across commentator livestreams, Eurogamer (Vikki Blake), Aug 29, 2026
• GTA 6 extended look reaches 31.1m views on Netflix in four days, GamesIndustry.biz (Sophie McEvoy), Sep 2, 2026
• 'This Is Unbelievably Scummy' - GTA 6 Fans Are Annoyed By Netflix's Paywalled Extended Look at the Game, IGN (Cade Onder), Aug 6, 2026
• Bland or badass? The internet is split on GTA 6's Jason, and so is PC Gamer, PC Gamer (Christopher Livingston), Aug 28, 2026
• Despite having no clue when GTA 6 is coming to PC, 39% of you are more than happy to wait for it, PC Gamer (Mollie Taylor), Jun 29, 2026
• "It's crazy that 50% of you are lying", Gamepressure (Martin Bukowski), Jan 14, 2026
• GTA 6 pre-order demand is 'unprecedented and astonishing', Shacknews (Donovan Erskine), Aug 7, 2026
• GTA 6 pre-orders demand is 'astonishing and unprecedented,' Take-Two CEO says, TweakTown (Derek Strickland), Aug 7, 2026
• GTA 6 Pre-Orders See A 436% Rise As Fans Rush To Buy After Netflix Reveal, Esquire India (Annie Sharma), Sep 3, 2026
• Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer 1 REACTION!!, Blind Wave Gaming, Dec 5, 2023 (video)
• iShowSpeed Reacts To GTA 6 Getting Delayed.., Speedy Boykins, Nov 6, 2025 (video)
• Streamers React To GTA 6 DELAYED AGAIN!, Banana, Nov 13, 2025 (video)
• the internet after the GTA 6 gameplay reveal, Man Carrying Thing, Aug 28, 2026 (video)
• RE: The 'GTA 6' reveal..., Luke Stephens, Aug 28, 2026 (video)
• Thoughts on the GTA 6 Gameplay Reveal, penguinz0, Aug 27, 2026 (video)
• GTA VI's Jason Duval And Link Make Their Final Pitch On Saturday Night Live, Kotaku, Oct 4, 2026
• Will GTA 6 Ever Come To Switch 2? Nintendo Of America President Says Go Ask Rockstar, Kotaku, Oct 9, 2026 (the Ocarina of Time remake's date)
• Fans React To GTA 6's $400 Collector's Box That Doesn't Include The Game, Kotaku, Sep 24, 2026
• Weekend Update: Legend of Zelda's Link and Grand Theft Auto's Jason on Their Competing Video Games, Saturday Night Live, Oct 4, 2026 (video)