GTA 6 Trailer 3 Wait Breaks Red Dead Redemption 2 Record

2 weeks ago 19

Published May 31, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT

Sean Migalla (he/him) is a non-fiction and fiction writer with a B.A. in Television from Columbia College Chicago. He is a life-long fan of video games, having started on an NES as a kid and continuing to play ever since. Sean also has a strong love for all things table-top gaming, especially TCGs and TTRPGs.

The wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 has dragged much more than the buildup to many other AAA titles. A major part of this problem is GTA 6's multiple delays, as at one point the game was already supposed to have been out by now. Another reason the wait feels long is that Rockstar Games have been drip-feeding preview materials for the game at a frustratingly slow pace. As of earlier this week, it became clear that players will have to wait even longer for the game's next trailer than they did for Rockstar's last major release.

Red Dead Redemption 2 released its third trailer 177 days before the game launched. As pointed out by GTA 6 Coundown on Wednesday, as of May 27, GTA 6 was 176 days from release, and we still haven't seen a third trailer for the game. Now, there could be myriad reasons why Rockstar Games is holding out longer to release the third trailer for GTA 6 than they did for Red Dead Redemption 2, and they arent' all necessarily a bad sign. Still, given how the wait for GTA 6 has gone so far, one can't help but worry.

One potential reason for the longer wait could just be that there is more hype surrounding GTA 6 than there was Red Dead Redemption 2. Don't get me wrong, RDR2 was highly anticipated, but nowhere near the levels we've seen for GTA. The second trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2 has 20 million views on YouTube at the time of writing. Compare that to the 163 million views garnered by the second trailer for GTA 6, and it's easy to see the disparity.

This extra level of excitement may mean that Rockstar Games feel comfortable letting players stew a little longer as we wait to get another glimpse at GTA 6. Even by simply passing the date by which the RDR2 trailer would've dropped creates its own sort of tension amongst superfans who follow accounts like GTA 6 Countdown. This allows Rockstar to build up even more hype without having to actually release any new content about the game. Of course, the average player probably isn't watching the countdown, or even reading articles like this one, so there could be other reasons.

As much as I don't want to speak it into existence, there is always the possibility that GTA 6 could get delayed again, like the PC version of the game recently did. Now, as reported by Vice, it does seem like GTA 6 is still on track for its November 19, 2026, release date. That said, it's just hard to get too comfortable about the game being on time after it was already pushed back.

Hopefully, as suggested by the Vice article, we will be seeing a trailer for GTA 6 by the end of next month. Seeing more gameplay and knowing that aspect of the earnings call was accurate will make it easier to accept that the game really is on track for its scheduled release. That said, it might be hard to believe it's coming out on time until players can boot it up on their console.