Grand Theft Auto 6 leak says preorders begin next week

The likelihood of another Grand Theft Auto 6 delay seems a whole lot less, well, likely now, as a reported leak out of Best Buy says preorders for the game—the most anticipated videogame in years, if you haven’t been keeping score—will go live next week.

The leak was first reported by content creator Frogboyx1Gaming, who said on X (via Rockstar Intel) that an email sent to his Best Buy affiliate account revealed that preorders will go live on May 18. Things got serious when others chimed in to say they’d received the same email.

Another person has received the BestBuy GTA6 Preorder Email with video proof from r/GTA6

Affiliate links, simply put, are personalized links provided to websites, streamers, and content creators that enable them to earn a commission if one of their viewers orders a product using that link. We use them here at PC Gamer, too—here’s our affiliate disclosure, breaking down exactly how it works.

Emails like this give affiliate partners a heads-up on what’s coming, so they can prepare for what’s coming and maximize their output appropriately. I think it’s a safe bet, though, that this particular email was not supposed to go out today—either that, or Best Buy has remarkable (and remarkably misplaced) faith in the gaming community to not leak things.

As with all leaks, this one should be taken with a grain of salt: It’s possibly a mistake or a placeholder date, and for those who enjoy conspiracy theorizing, it could even be a bunch of influencers coordinating on a little bit of fun with the tightly-wound GTA community.

That said, it looks legit enough to be worthy of attention: Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive said earlier this year that “launch marketing” for Grand Theft Auto 6 will begin this summer, and that’s getting awfully close. The May 18 date is also just a few days ahead of Take-Two’s next quarterly report, which is set for May 21, and having GTA 6 fully firmed-up leading into that—as much as possible in an uncertain world, at least—could eliminate a lot of investor and analyst uncertainty.

Of course, all of this is of limited relevance to us here in the world of mouse and keyboard, because Grand Theft Auto 6 hasn’t been announced for PC yet. Even so, May 18 will be a day worth watching for at least two reasons. One, if preorders do go live that day, the long-awaited third trailer will surely drop, hopefully with an actual look at the game, rather than just cinematic hype; and two, it will finally reveal the game’s price, which has been the subject of speculation and hand-wringing for months now. Is the era of the $100 videogame finally upon us? (I don’t think so, for the record, but $80 for the base edition won’t surprise me in the least.)

Grand Theft Auto 6, for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, is set to launch on November 19. See you next week.