GTA 6 Pre-Load Guide: Size, Speed, and Storage Prep

November 12 is when you can start downloading Grand Theft Auto VI if you want to play it immediately as soon as it unlocks on November 19.

Rockstar Games has confirmed that players who pre-order digital versions can begin pre-loading on November 12. Physical copies also ship on November 12.

Just to make it clear, pre-loading isn't early access. The files land on your console and sit there doing absolutely nothing until the game unlocks on November 19. You cannot start the story early, you cannot peek at the map, you cannot boot it up. What it does is prepare you to load into Vice City immediately once the proverbial door opens.

Unfortunately, Rockstar has yet to announce a precise file size. Realistically, we can expect a range of roughly 150GB to 200GB for the base game, with a day-one patch likely adding somewhere between 20GB and 50GB on top. Plan for up to 250GB total and you will not be caught out.

For context, Grand Theft Auto V sits around 110GB. A brand-new open world covering the entire fictional state of Leonida will take up a much large space.

Those are best-case figures assuming you get your full advertised speed, which you probably won't. Competing against several million or so people worldwide for bandwidth will overload Rockstar's servers, considerably slowing things down. If you are on a 25 Mbps connection, we suggest starting the download the moment it becomes available on November 12 and simply leave it running overnight.

Next thing to consider is storage. A console never gives you the number on the box, because the operating system and system files take a chunk before you install anything. So a launch PlayStation 5 advertising 825GB actually leaves you around 667GB, and a 200GB game eats roughly 30 percent of that in one go. This is especially problematic for the Xbox Series S. With only around 364GB usable, a 200GB GTA 6 install would consume more than half the entire console.

If you own a Series S and you also want to keep anything else installed, you are almost certainly buying an expansion card, and these don't come cheap in this day and age. The price should only get worse, not better, in the coming days, due to the ongoing shortage, and the fact that the demand will spike up as people buy it in a state of panic on November 12 when they realize they don't have enough space on their storage drives to play the next Grand Theft Auto.

Mind you, pre-reloading doesn't mean you're finished downloading. There's almost always a day-one patch. So on November 19, expect to see an additional 20GB to 50GB patch.

Finally, in case you didn't know, the physical version of GTA 6 doesn't come up with a disc. It contains a download code you redeem. These copies ship on November 12, which means the box has to physically arrive at your door first before you can redeem the code and begin to download the game. If the delivery slips, or if you are not home, tough luck. There is a real scenario where digital buyers are already fully downloaded on November 13 and someone who paid the same money for a box is still waiting on a courier on November 18.

In previous generations, a physical copy was the safe option, because a disc in your hand meant you were playing at midnight regardless of what the internet was doing. This is no longer the case. Digital is now the more reliable route, which is a genuinely strange sentence to write about a game people are buying in boxes. It's worth noting too that the Ultimate Edition is digital only regardless.

We will update this page with the confirmed file size the moment Rockstar announces it, along with anything that changes about the pre-load process. Until then, clear at least 250GB, start downloading on November 12 rather than later in the week, and expect one more patch on launch day no matter how organised you were.