By every metric you can count, GTA 6 will be one of, if not the biggest, gaming launches in history. Full stop. The love of this franchise, mixed with the decade-long-plus wait between entries, and Rockstar Games doing a slow burn with showing off more of the game, has made things almost unbearable for fans, as they clearly want the game right now. Obviously, they'll have to wait until May 26th, 2026, to get the title, but that's not stopping them from asking about key steps along the way. Specifically, they want to know when pre-orders for the game will finally go live.
It's a fair question, as NUMEROUS people will want to pre-order the game immediately to ensure that they'll get to play the game at launch. So, let's ask the question: when will pre-orders be made available to gamers?
That's actually a far trickier question than you might think. You see, there's no true "industry standard" for when pre-orders go live. Sometimes, they want you to be able to do it months ahead of time, so the developer/publisher can get a gauge of how many people are ensuring they get the title on day 1. Then, there are titles that have things like Early Access, which is a different kind of pre-order, as you're helping the game get developed.
Oh, and there are titles that straight-up get announced and then shadow-dropped, so pre-orders are skipped entirely.
For one fan, they suspect that GTA 6 will get its pre-order announcement alongside its third trailer, which they suspect could happen in early November:
The poster was smart to make it clear that this was "just their opinion," as it's truly unknowable what Rockstar Games will do with both the third trailer and the pre-order openings. In fact, that can be seen in the comments to the post, where one commenter noted that they hoped the person's prediction was right, while another posited that Rockstar wasn't likely to announce anything for the rest of 2025! While on different ends of the spectrum, both sides could very much be right.
Another thing to consider here is that Rockstar will definitely have "special editions" of their game for people to buy and get cool stuff with, so that also factors into the pre-order frenzy.
Finally, as a certain Team Cherry release can attest to, Rockstar also needs to work with the various electronic shops so that things don't crash on release day.