GTA 6 Multiplayer Release Plans May Have Been Revealed
November 19 will see the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto 6, but as far as official announcements go, the game is a single-player-only affair. Grand Theft Auto Online has been nothing short of a money printer for…
November 19 will see the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto 6, but as far as official announcements go, the game is a single-player-only affair. Grand Theft Auto Online has been nothing short of a money printer for more than a decade, but the expected multiplayer component for GTA 6 has yet to be confirmed by Rockstar Games. A surprising source, however, may have let its release plans slip.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy recently sat down with Bloomberg for an interview to discuss, among other things, the cultural behemoth that is GTA 6 and the impact it will have on the livestreaming platform. "We spent a lot of time talking with Rockstar about their plans, and also helping them think about how they can engage our creators," Clancy said. "You are going to see this big bump with GTA 6, but then an even bigger one next year when they launch multiplayer."
Twitch CEO Suggests GTA 6 Multiplayer Planned for 2027
This could be speculation, or a misunderstanding, or even a simple slip of the tongue, but it sounds like Clancy has had detailed discussions with developers or executives at Rockstar Games about GTA 6's release plans. Twitch likely factors into the situation because of the popularity of GTA Online RP (role-play) servers, which began as mods and gained a ton of attention during COVID lockdowns.
That's not to say Grand Theft Auto 6's initial release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S won't be huge for Twitch streaming numbers—it's very likely to see high viewership—but RP has become a monolith in its own right, even aside from GTA Online's already notable popularity. Rockstar itself has been gearing up to offer officially hosted RP servers by hiring the team that made one of the more popular mods, FiveM.
It has been obvious for quite a while that multiplayer will not ship with GTA 6 in November, but if the Twitch CEO really does have knowledge of the situation, the wait may not be long. It's unclear what exactly a GTA Online successor would entail, RP elements or not, but since it would conceivably be built on GTA 6, new features like mini-games to steal cars and the return of light life simulation elements could be included.
Will GTA 6 Multiplayer Coincide With a PC Release?
The expected release of GTA 6 multiplayer is joined by another mystery surrounding the game: when a PC port might come out. Rockstar has a habit of belatedly bringing its titles to PC, and the presumed port will probably be the only opportunity to see better performance out of GTA 6 than the 30 frames per second it's aiming for on consoles.
RP is pertinent to the discussion because the currently available mods are only playable on PC—FiveM and the like cannot be downloaded to a PlayStation, for instance. If Rockstar is planning on hosting official RP servers, this may not necessarily be an issue technologically, but there is an existing RP community on PC to consider. Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 each took more than a year to make the leap to PC, with their respective online modes coming to consoles well before then.
This is all to say, GTA 6's post-launch support schedule remains almost a complete mystery. If Twitch's CEO has been clued in and let some unannounced details slip, Grand Theft Auto 6 multiplayer may be coming in 2027, but until Rockstar makes an official announcement, it remains a (quite compelling) rumor.