Unless you’ve been living in self-imposed exile for the past few days, you’ve probably heard about Rockstar dropping the very first, official GTA 6 trailer on Tuesday; though an unauthorized, low-res, heavily-watermarked version of the trailer getting leaked by an anonymous Twitter/X account prompted Rockstar to release the real deal, along with the message, “Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube,” the furor for the sequel to the uber-successful GTA 5, one fans have been salivating for for ten years, wasn’t tempered one bit.
In fact, as of this writing, the GTA 6 trailer has exceeded 103 million views, surpassing the viewer count of Rockstar’s official trailer for GTA 5, the latter of which has accrued over 100 million views the past 12 years.
So how big of a deal has the GTA 6 trailer been? According to Guinness World Records, the trailer is already the most viewed video game reveal on YouTube in its first 24 hours.
Lucia and Jason in the GTA 6 trailer/Rockstar
The GTA 6 trailer smashed the prior record of most views for a non-music YouTube video in 24 hours, one previously held by YouTuber Mr. Beast, who had 59.4 million views for his “$1 vs $100,000,000” video.
It’s important to note the “non-music” YouTube video designation in that description, because although the GTA 6 trailer is on track to becoming one of the most-viewed trailers in YouTube history, it fell ten million views short of breaking the world record for most watched YouTube video in a 24-hour period, held by K-pop band BTS’ “Butter” video. It can be argued that because the official Rockstar GTA 6 trailer was also competing for views on the YouTube algorithm with contemporaneous uploads of the trailer from gaming sites such as Gamespot that the overall numbers may have been skewed.
Notwithstanding, the GTA 6 trailer has exceeded the views for a number of YouTube trailers previously regarded as untouchable, such as Disney’s official trailer for Frozen 2 (101 million views), the official Warner Bros. upload for the Joker (100 million views) and Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer (over 90 million views).
The GTA 6 trailer, centers around protagonist Lucia, the first female protagonist in a GTA game since the 90s. It also features various glimpses of myriad, colorful individuals exhibiting their many eccentricities (exaggerated or not) in the fictional state of Leonida — more specifically, the Miami-inspired Vice City — such as partying on boats, oiling each other up on the beach, twerking on top of cars speeding down the highway and a man pulling an alligator out of a swimming pool, all to the tune of Tom Petty’s heartland rock anthem “Love is a Long Road.”
Lucia in disguise in bikini in the GTA 6 trailer?/Rockstar
GTA 6 is currently slated to release sometime in 2025 for the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series S|X.
Were you part of the official GTA 6 trailer launch hype? What did you think of the trailer? Are you surprised to see it has racked up so many views? Let us know in the comments.
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