Grand Theft Auto VI will launch in $80 and $100, single-player and disc-free
No word on GTA VI Online
After over a year of speculation, Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto VI will indeed cost more than the average video game.
The open-world crime adventure set across a fictionalized version of Florida called Leonida will cost $80 for its standard version and $100 for a deluxe edition.
Both versions launch on November 19 and are being detailed by Rockstar and publisher Take Two today ahead of a midnight (local time) June 25 opening of pre-orders for the game.
The $80 version is the equivalent of the standard edition of GTA V that launched in September 2013 for $60. It’s the base game, minus some frills.
(For GTA V, Rockstar and Take Two also sold $80 and $150 special editions with bonuses.)
The $100 version of GTA VI offers more in-game content, include multiple exclusive in-game stores, a set of collectible classic cars, exclusive vehicles, clothes and weapons and even an exclusive “illegal goods store” players can rob. Rockstar hasn’t said how many other variations of these types of locations and items will be available in the standard $80 version of the game.
The heightened price for GTA VI was expected, given the expected scale of the game, the cost of making it over its nearly decade long development cycle and the strong likelihood that millions of people are ready to buy the game sight unseen.
From 2007 or so through 2020, major new video game releases sold for $60.
At the start of the current console generation, the common new-game price for big titles rose to $70.
In June 2026, Nintendo launched the Switch 2 alongside Mario Kart World, which it sold for $80. Microsoft initially announced an $80 price for its late-2025 role-playing game The Outer Worlds 2, before lowering that to $70 ahead of launch.
Take Two has been selling deluxe $100 (and higher) versions of its games consistently for years, often offering earlier access to the games—usually several days—as part of the incentive to pay more. The $100 version of GTA VI does not come with early access.
In April, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told Game File that chart-topping sales of the $100 versions of last year’s NBA 2K26 where a sign that “a special edition that offers a lot of added value can appeal to a relatively small subset of consumers.”
The big question: What about GTA VI Online?
Rockstar today said “Grand Theft Auto VI features a single player experience launching on November 19 to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.”
That sentence re-confirms that GTA VI won’t be out for PC on November 19. It also should lock in expectations that what will be playable and purchasable for mid-November is a single-player game.
Take Two said last month that it had shipped nearly 230 million copies of GTA V to retailers since the game’s 2013 launch, making it by far one of the best-selling games of all time.
While the game’s solo campaign was critically acclaimed and commercially popular, much of its success can also be attributed to GTA Online, the online multiplayer version of the game, set on the same faux-Los-Angeles map. GTAO emerged over the years as a popular game to play, to mod and to watch other players play and role-play online.
GTA Online launched on October 1, 2013, two weeks after the based GTA V game, at no added base price, though it has been supported and expanded for over a decade with a mix of content that can be obtained for free or via microtransactions. Rockstar and Take Two.
Rockstar and Take Two have not said a thing about the online aspect of GTA VI.
Where’s the disc?
Boxed copies of GTA VI that are available at launch will include a download code in a box, not a disc with the game on it, Rockstar and Take Two said today.
GTA-watchers have speculated that the game would ship without a disc version, to diminish the likelihood of leaks. But comments from Take Two chairman CEO Zelnick left the door open for a disc at launch.
In February, Variety had asked Zelnick about rumors of physical copies being delayed until 2027 to avoid leaks. “That’s not the plan,” the outlet reported him saying.
Last month, Zelnick said the game’s launch would have a “physical component.”
At this point, the physical component of GTA VI on launch day appears to be a box, not a disc inside it.
Game File has asked Rockstar if or when a physical version would include a disc. No word back yet.
For preservationists, even news of a disc would not necessarily be enough. Many games sold on disc these days don’t include the full game on the disc, requiring a download regardless.
Bonus: Who is on GTA VI’s $100 bill?
Newly released images of GTA VI feature glimpses of all sorts of details from the game, including its currency. The in-game $100 bills do not feature Ben Franklin. Who is it?
Online, some fans told Game File that it’s President Hardin from Rockstar’s 2018 western Red Dead Redemption 2. One told me the money even appeared in earlier GTA games, though I wasn’t able to independently confirm.
The overlap has been spotted before, fueling theories about whether Rockstar’s two big franchises are narratively connected. Or maybe Rockstar’s artists are just having some fun.