When Will GTA 6 Trailer 2 Come Out? Take-Two Boss Says It’s Better to Provide Marketing Materials Relatively Close to the Release Window

It might be a while yet before we get Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer 2, after comments from the boss of Rockstar’s parent company revealed his preference for releasing marketing materials relatively close to a release window.

Rockstar released GTA 6 Trailer 1 to record-breaking viewership in December 2023, but it hasn’t released a single asset since. The 15-month wait for more information has fueled increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories about when Rockstar will release GTA 6 Trailer 2.

These have included counting the holes in Lucia’s cell door net, the bullet holes in the car from Trailer 1, and even registration plates. But chief among the conspiracy theories is GTA 6’s ongoing moon watch, which was, remarkably, proven to have accurately predicted the date Rockstar announced when it would release GTA 6 Trailer 1, but debunked as a hint at the release date for Trailer 2.

So the big question right now is, when will GTA 6 Trailer 2 be released? We’re no closer to finding out, but based on comments from Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick, fans may have to wait until much closer to GTA 6’s actual release date for their next look at the most anticipated video game in the world.

In a new interview with Bloomberg, Zelnick was asked straight up: why is GTA 6’s release date such a carefully held secret?

“The anticipation for that title may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for an entertainment property,” Zelnick replied. “And I’ve been around the block a few times and I’ve been in every entertainment business there is.

“We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement. And we do have competitors who will describe their release schedule for years in advance. And we found that the better thing to do is to provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement on the one hand and balance the excitement with unmet anticipation. We don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s what we are trying to do.”

There are a few things worth digging into here. The first is Zelnick’s comments about keeping GTA 6’s release date such a carefully held secret “to maintain the anticipation and the excitement.” That’s something fans and the media alike have assumed to be true, and indeed former Rockstar developers have tried to explain is true.

Mike York, who worked as an animator at Rockstar New England for six years helping to build Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 before leaving the company in 2017, said on his YouTube channel that Rockstar is playing up to the conspiracy theories, deliberately avoiding saying anything about the game or when Trailer 2 will be released in order to fuel even more speculation within the community.

“They’re reaching and pulling and trying to come up with these really cool theories to decipher when the next trailer will be,” he said of fans.

“Specifically Rockstar, they’re very secretive about what they do, and this is a really cool tactic because it creates allure and it creates mystery and it creates people talking about it without them having to do anything. The more they’re silent the better it is, because the more people will be antsy and want to talk about it and have this feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen.”

York went on to say that Rockstar is likely resisting pressure from its army of fans to announce the GTA 6 Trailer 2 release date for this exact reason.

“They could easily release the trailer date and be like, ‘Hey this is when the trailer’s coming out,’ but they don’t do it. And they don’t do it on purpose because it’s a really, really good marketing tactic. If you think about it, it creates these really cool theories.

“This brings the fans together. This is a really cool way to get fans to talk about your game when you’re not releasing anything yet, in-between the times.

“All these theories are great. They only create hype, they create talk, they create mystery behind the games.”

The second thing worth pulling out of Zelnick’s quote is the suggestion that GTA 6 Trailer 2 won’t be released until we’re closer to the game’s actual release date in fall 2025 (assuming it’s not delayed). If that’s true, it may be half a year before we get another look at GTA 6.

While you wait for GTA 6 to come out, check out IGN’s coverage of an ex-Rockstar dev who says the studio probably won’t be able to decide whether GTA 6 is delayed until May 2025, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick’s response to concern about the fate of GTA Online once GTA 6 comes out, and the expert opinion on whether the PS5 Pro will run GTA 6 at 60 frames per second.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].