GTA 6 Online could arrive within weeks of Grand Theft Auto VI and force Rockstar Games to manage a handover from a version of GTA Online still bringing in about $500 million a year. The biggest pressure point is not raw player count but the small group of paying users who drive most of the spending. Rockstar has not announced the online launch plan yet, and a parallel run with the current GTA Online still looks possible.
Grand Theft Auto VI launches on November 19, 2026. If a recent leak holds up, the online component could follow within weeks, potentially going live before Christmas. That would put Rockstar Games in a position nobody in the live-service industry has ever actually been in: launching a successor to a game that is still pulling in roughly $1.3 million every single day.
The leak comes from TheGhostOfHope, who we covered earlier this month when he posted on X that the current plan at Rockstar is to launch GTA 6 Online within a month of the base game's release. Hope said: "Up to you guys if you wanna believe me on this or not but hearing from someone that the current plan for GTA 6 is to launch online within a month after the release of the game." He is primarily known for Call of Duty leaks, where his track record has been strong enough that Activision's legal team went after him directly. His GTA track record is less established, and he openly says the information comes from a single source.
The timeline itself is not unusual for Rockstar though. GTA 5 launched in September 2013 and GTA Online followed two weeks later. Red Dead Redemption 2 did the same thing in 2018, with its online beta going live within a month of the base game. If Rockstar follows that pattern again, players could be in GTA 6 Online lobbies by mid-December 2026, which immediately raises the question of what happens to the version of GTA Online that is currently making Rockstar roughly half a billion dollars a year.
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The ShinyHunters data leak from April 13 gave the public its first confirmed look at those internal revenue numbers. Kotaku verified the data with people who have seen the files, and the numbers are staggering. Between September 2025 and April 2026, GTA Online averaged $9.59 million per week and $1.31 million per day. Annualised, that works out to roughly $500 million in yearly revenue. Shark Cards accounted for 74% of that total, with GTA+ subscriptions covering the rest, and Shark Card sales alone have crossed $5 billion cumulative since they were introduced in 2014.
The platform numbers make the transition even more complicated. PS5 leads with 3.47 million weekly active users and $4.48 million in weekly spendings. PS4 still has 1.9 million weekly users despite being last-gen hardware. Xbox Series X/S sits at 1.1 million, Xbox One at 1 million, and PC trails at just under 900,000. Only about 4% of the active player base actually spends money, which means a very small group of high-value spenders is generating nearly all of that revenue.
That 4% is the group Rockstar cannot afford to lose during the transition. If those players migrate cleanly to GTA 6 Online, the revenue follows them. If the transition is rough or confusing or poorly timed, those spenders have a reason to stop spending, and once someone breaks a spending habit, getting them back is significantly harder than keeping them in the first place.
Whether GTA Online in its current form shuts down when GTA 6 Online goes live is another open question. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has hinted that the existing service has a future beyond the GTA 6 launch, which suggests Rockstar may run both simultaneously for a period. That way they are not pulling the plug on 2.9 million last-gen players who have no way of playing GTA 6 in the first place, and the existing money keeps coming in while the new game finds its footing. Keeping two live-service games running at once is expensive though. Both need content, servers, and moderation. Rockstar has the money for it, but even they would feel that strain.
Court documents from the Rockstar North employee firings in October 2025 revealed that workers had been playtesting GTA 6 Online sessions with 32 players. Rockstar called this a "top secret" feature, though current GTA Online already supports 32 per session, just split as 30 active and 2 spectators. Whether GTA 6 Online expands that active count or restructures lobbies entirely is still unknown. The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain has disputed the firings, calling them union-busting rather than a genuine response to leaks.
All of this adds up to a transition with no real precedent. Other live-service games have launched sequels before, but none of them were still earning $500 million a year when they did it. Destiny 2 replaced Destiny, but the original was already winding down by then. Overwatch 2 replaced Overwatch, but that was closer to a relaunch than a true successor running alongside an existing product. GTA Online is not winding down. It just had its best performing DLC launch day in years when the A Safehouse in the Hills update drew 6.1 million daily active users in December 2025, and its Christmas 2025 average revenue per paying user came in at $60.68.
Rockstar has to launch GTA 6 Online into a market where its own predecessor is the competition. If they launch too soon and the transition could get messy, and if they wait too long the momentum from GTA 6's single-player launch could start to fade while the audience splinters. A one-month gap mirrors what worked with GTA 5 and RDR2, but the financial scale of what Rockstar is managing in 2026 compared to 2013 is not even close.
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TheGhostOfHope's claim has not been confirmed by Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive, and the studio has not officially announced any details about GTA 6 Online's launch timeline. The summer 2026 marketing push is when the first official details are expected to surface.
Grand Theft Auto VI launches on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
FAQ
Is this a full replacement for the current GTA Online or a separate online launch?
This is currently not confirmed yet. The current expectation is a separate GTA 6 Online launch after the base game, much like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but Rockstar has not said whether the existing GTA Online would be shut down at the same time. What we do know is that Strauss Zelnick has reaffirmed that they don't see any reason to shut down GTA Online even after the release of GTA 6.
Which players are most exposed if Rockstar keeps both versions running?
Last gen players are the clearest group in limbo. PS4 still has about 1.9 million weekly users and Xbox One has about 1 million, and they have no way to play GTA 6 if support stays limited to PS5 and Xbox Series X and S.
What is the biggest risk in the switch to GTA 6 Online?
A messy handover could hit spending fast. Only about 4% of active players spend money in GTA Online, so Rockstar Games is heavily reliant on a small group of high value users moving over smoothly.
How is this different from other sequel launches like Destiny 2 or Overwatch 2?
Those games did not take over while the older product was still generating this kind of money. GTA Online is still active, still attracting millions of players each week, and still posting major revenue, which makes the overlap far harder to manage.
Why do people keep citing roughly $500 million a year for GTA Online?
Because leaked internal figures covering September 2025 to April 2026 showed GTA Online averaging $9.59 million a week and $1.31 million a day. Shark Cards made up 74% of that total, with GTA+ covering the rest.
