Take-Two won’t begin marketing GTA 6 until it’s closer to release: “The anticipation for this title may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for any entertainment property”

Rockstar Games set the internet ablaze with its first GTA 6 trailer, and in dramatic fashion, it’s been relatively mute about the mammoth game ever since. It’s not just Rockstar being Rockstar, though. There’s an actual reason for the radio silence: corporate owner Take-Two wants keep anticipation high until the game is closer to release, meaning the next time we see GTA 6, its launch might not be far behind.

That comes courtesy of Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who recently spoke to Bloomberg about the blockbuster. “The anticipation for this title may be the greatest anticipation I’ve ever seen for any entertainment property, and I’ve been around the block a few times,” Zelnick said of the game – and he might not be exaggerating either. GTA 6’s first trailer alone has almost 250 million views, presumably from the millions of people who bought GTA 5 and have been waiting for over a decade for a follow-up.

“I’ve been in every entertainment business there is,” Zelnick continued. “We want to maintain the anticipation and the excitement.” The CEO notes its “competitors” will sometimes market their games years before they eventually come out, but Take-Two reckons a tight-lipped approach will preserve the hype better. “We’ve found that the better thing to do is to provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement on the one hand, and balance the excitement with the anticipation. We don’t always get it exactly right, but that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Take-Two previously reiterated that GTA 6 would still be coming in fall 2025, so whenever we get that much talked about second trailer depends on what Zelnick means by “close.” Either way, I wouldn’t hold my breath for another look at the game until at least this summer, which I don’t mind – I don’t need to see too much more of GTA 6 before release anyway.

The publisher’s reluctance to say basically anything about the game until months before its launch probably isn’t ideal for other developers looking to put out a game sometime in the next, err, nine months. Other publishers are reportedly in a frenzy over GTA 6’s release date and are ready to delay their own games to get the hell away from it because, well, GTA 6 is probably the biggest black hole (for people’s time and money) in the industry.

Take-Two CEO says AI users who think they “can push a button and say, ‘Create the next GTA 6′” are completely wrong: “The big creative leaps forward will be generated by humans”