Development

The game was first confirmed to be under active development by Rockstar Games on February 4, 2022, with a promise to provide more details in the future. On July 7, 2022, in a further post on their Newswire, Rockstar confirmed that over the past few years, they had steadily been moving more resources and staff "towards the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series - understanding more than ever the need to exceed players’ expectations and for this next entry to be the best it can possibly be". Development was confirmed to still be active development by two quarterly earnings calls on August 8, 2022 and May 17, 2023. Take-Two asserted that Rockstar Games was "determined to set creative benchmarks for the series, industry and entertainment. In the May 17th call, Take-Two also confirmed that they were expecting to release a number of "ground-breaking titles" in Fiscal Year 2025 which will "allow us to achieve over $8 billion in Net Bookings", which a portion of the GTA community believed to be a soft confirmation of the game's general release timeline.

With the release of the game's first trailer on December 4, 2023, the game's official name, Grand Theft Auto VI, was finally confirmed. Shortly after the trailer's release, published their acclamation on Rockstar Games' upcoming 2025 release. Several variants of the game's logomark were trademarked on the website on December 4 and 5, 2023.

On May 16, 2024, Take-Two Interactive narrowed the release date of GTA VI from Fiscal Year 2025 to the Fall of Calendar Year 2025 in their Q4 Earnings Presentation. This date would be solidified by later Q1, Q2, and Q3 Earnings Presentations. With the release of the Q3 presentation on February 6, 2025, Take-Two CEO also added in an interview that he and Rockstar Games felt "really good" about the Fall 2025 release window.