While we sit around holding hands and humming the right cosmic frequency to hasten GTA 6’s autumn 2025 release window, publisher Take-Two is thinking about the long game. In other words: CEO Strauss Zelnick has already mentioned GTA 7.
Speaking at investment bank TD Securities’ Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, Zelnick was asked by the interviewer: “If you look at, I know we’re not even at GTA 6 yet, but thinking about –”
To which Zelnick replied “GTA 7?”
And that’s all it takes in the internet age, isn’t it? Zelnick’s making a passing joke here, a subtle reference to the community’s hunger for announcements and the media’s need for headlines. It feels plausible that one day there’ll be a GTA 7, in the same way that EA FC 28 feels likely, and you wouldn’t bet against there being a new Call Of Duty before long. In other words: this was not a GTA 7 confirmation.
However the interview did also reveal why the development and release of GTA titles takes a long time. Basically, when you’re the number one multimedia entertainment property in the world, you’ve got to spend a bit of time to get it right.
“The world is a different place than when we [launched] GTA V,” says Zelnick. “What came before at that point was IV, we had some downloadable add-on content, there was no online version.
“It was sort of neck and neck with Call of Duty at that point. Here we are now with V, 10-11 years later. We’re a real outlier. We are the number one entertainment property of all time across all forms of entertainment. When Rockstar put out the announcement trailer [it] basically broke the internet. And the trailer had 93 million views on YouTube in 24 hours. The anticipation is huge, one can’t deny that.”
Asked if Rockstar would prefer not to have another 12-year gap between GTA releases, Zelnick replied: ”It’s important to bear in mind that it’s not like Rockstar put out GTA V and sat on their hands for 12 years, right?
“We launched GTA Online. That’s turned into a massive, living, breathing ecosystem which continues to perform and grow to this day. So the label totally transformed from a label that made big, standalone, monolithic, games… to a label that’s now in the live services business.
“Given the scale of that label, it’s a huge company itself, there isn’t much more to be done. This isn’t a situation where it is 12 years of girth of product, there’s 12 years where Rockstar has been putting out a mass amount of content. And another little title called Red Dead 2.”
