Government bodies continue to talk about Grand Theft Auto VI. This time around, it's the German Embassy in London, who reported that the game's pre-load alone pushed Europe's largest internet exchange to the highest traffic peak it has ever recorded.
DE-CIX Frankfurt, the biggest internet exchange on the continent, hit 22.30 terabits per second as players pulled down the game ahead of launch. The figure beat its previous record, set in January, by just over 19%. Across DE-CIX's global network, traffic passed 33 terabits per second for the first time ever, topping out at an all-time high of 33.01. The cause was a single roughly 212 GB download arriving on millions of consoles at once.
DE-CIX laid out the numbers in its own press release, where CTO Thomas King said major game releases can spike traffic fast, but called the sheer scale of this one unrivalled, prompting the aforementioned German Embassy in London to post about it.
The strain reached past the exchange and into home broadband as well. Virgin Media O2 recorded its busiest day ever, with morning data volumes up more than 70% on a normal week. In Germany, 1&1 reported connections to PlayStation Network and Xbox Live running at roughly ten times their usual level, while the Netherlands' Ziggo saw traffic climb 57% after midnight. The Nordic provider GlobalConnect clocked a 50% overnight jump. The traffic surge was so high that not every network was able to cope. The UK's YouFibre hit congestion severe enough to trigger emergency traffic management. Some US providers rolled out free speed boosts to get subscribers through.
GTA 6 pre-load traffic records
Network | Peak or spike | Note |
|---|---|---|
DE-CIX global | 33.01 Tbit/s | First time above 33, an all-time high |
DE-CIX Frankfurt | 22.30 Tbit/s | Up 19.06% on the January 2026 record |
Virgin Media O2 (UK) | Busiest day ever | Morning data up 73.3% on the week |
1&1 (Germany) | Around ten times normal | PlayStation Network and Xbox Live overnight |
Ziggo (Netherlands) | 57% above normal | Shortly after midnight |
GlobalConnect (Nordics) | Around 50% overnight rise | Sweden and neighbours |
The pre-load alone set records a week before anyone can play.
The records are the natural result of everything leading up to this week. Record pre-orders meant a record number of people queuing for the same roughly 212 GB download at once, amid expectations that GTA VI is on course for the biggest launch in history. The same demand sits behind Newzoo's estimate of up to 51 million copies sold in week one and helps explain why YouTube is dedicating a 24-hour livestream to the release. A single download bending Europe's internet backbone shows the scale of download demand but does not confirm those sales projections.
The unnerving part is that this was the warm-up. Judging from how things quickly escalated after Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick called Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look also a warm-up a few months back, we can only imagine how absurd things are going to get on the day and week of November 19.
The pre-loads spread download demand out before the game unlocks. Millions hitting play at once could pose a different stress test for game services, but these bandwidth records alone cannot tell us how those services will hold up.