What have we learned from Grand Theft Auto 6’s second trailer?

Just when you’d come to terms with the fact that Grand Theft Auto 6 had been delayed until next year, Rockstar Games goes and drops a brand new trailer.

Last week, the video game developer announced the game had been pushed back to May 2026, shocking fans who were expecting it to land this autumn.

It’s been 12 years since the last GTA game was released, and the long wait for the most anticipated sequel of all time just became even more agonising.

But earlier, the company released a new, three-minute trailer, giving eager players a stack of new information to dissect in the meantime.

Here are some of the highlights.

The record-breaking first trailer for GTA 6, published online in late 2023, introduced players to protagonists Jason and Lucia – a couple who live a life of crime in Leonida, the fictional US state where the game is set.

We now know a bit more about their backstory.

The new trailer opens with Jason doing odd jobs before driving around Vice City – the Miami-inspired location from the 2002 PlayStation 2 game.

According to Rockstar, Jason was a troubled teen who joined the army to escape his bad influences, but fell back into crime after returning home.

In the trailer he eventually collects Lucia from prison, where she has been serving time for “protecting her family”.

From there, the clip launches into a montage of action sequences, romantic scenes and glimpses of the game’s wider world.

We see the couple carrying out armed heists, partying on a yacht and riding a jetski together.

According to a description on Rockstar’s website, the two want to forge a new life together but are plunged into “the middle of a conspiracy” after an “easy score goes wrong”.

Players also got to put names to faces of some of game’s wider cast, including bank robber Raul Bautista, smuggler Brian Heder and rap combo Real Dimez.

Like GTA 5, which was heavily based on Los Angeles and its surrounding areas, the sequel also appears to contain accurate recreations of some of Florida’s most famous landmarks.

Vice City’s version of Miami’s art deco, neon-lit beachfront appears in the trailer, as does the Grassrivers swampland, inspired by the Florida everglades.

Rockstar also revealed the Leonida Keys, the industrial Ambrosia region, sleazy Port Gellhorn and the mountainous Kalaga National Park.

In each case, it suggested the areas would be home to different groups and factions, from “hillbilly mystics” to biker gangs.

The trailer did not appear to include any gameplay footage, but was made up of cinematic sequences usually seen between story missions.

But fans were quick to praise the game’s next-generation graphics in the trailer and a series of screenshots published by Rockstar.

Video game trailers are sometimes created using powerful PCs but a note at the end of the trailer said the scenes in it were taken from a PlayStation 5 console.

But that doesn’t answer questions about new ways of interacting with the game’s world, or whether players can switch between characters on-the-fly as they could in GTA 5.

The hype around GTA 6 is huge, and Rockstar has form for delaying its games and a reputation for perfectionism.

When it announced the delay last week it told fans it needed extra time to “deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve”.

According to Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, the delay was to also to avoid “crunch” – a gaming industry term for enforced overtime.

The company was previously criticised by some staff over the practice – it accepted that some worked “long hours” but said some accounts were exaggerated.

When GTA 6’s delay was announced, shares in Rockstar’s parent company, Take Two Interactive, dropped by 10%.

The industry was banking on the game – which will initially be available only on Xbox and PlayStation 5 – to boost console sales and break software sales records.

However, having a firm date of 26 May 2026 for GTA 6 means that other publishers can now avoid releasing their own games at the same time.