GTA 6 Fans Go Wild Over Leaked Voice Notes Suggesting October Announcements

Update (October 2026): The clip got it wrong. There was no October 23 reveal, and GTA 6 did not come out in October 2024. Take-Two formally announced Grand Theft Auto VI on December 4, 2023, and after two delays the game is now set for November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The original September 2023 report follows.

An audio clip that claims to feature Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick talking about GTA 6 is spreading fast among fans. If it were real, it would be the biggest GTA 6 news in months. There are good reasons to doubt it.

What does the clip say?

According to GameSpot, the GTA VI_Countdown account re-shared the recording on September 3 after the original post was apparently taken down.

In it, a voice that sounds like Zelnick makes three claims:

• The next Grand Theft Auto is coming in Take-Two’s fiscal year 2025, meaning its financial year rather than the calendar year.
• Rockstar will officially announce the game on October 23 this year.
• The game will be released in October 2024.

Why many fans think it is fake

• It is out of character. As GameSpot pointed out, Zelnick rarely goes beyond top-level comments about GTA on earnings calls or in interviews. He usually leaves Rockstar to make its own announcements.
• Voice cloning is easy now. AI tools can make a recording that sounds like a real person saying things they never said.
• The delivery sounds odd. Listeners have pointed to the way “VI” is pronounced in the clip. Some think it sounds like software reading a script.

Some fans argue that the pauses and coughs in the recording make it sound natural. Still, GameSpot called the recording most likely fake, and it should be treated as a rumor.

How the real timeline played out

October 23, 2023, came and went without an announcement. As the real sequence of events shows, every date in the clip was wrong.

1. November 2023: Rockstar said the first trailer would arrive in early December.
2. December 4, 2023: Take-Two announced the game for 2025, with no exact date.
3. May 2025: Rockstar delayed it to May 26, 2026, Push Square reported.
4. November 6, 2025: The game slipped to November 19, 2026, announced alongside Take-Two’s quarterly results, according to Variety.
5. June 25, 2026: Pre-orders opened.
6. August 27, 2026: Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look premiered on Netflix.

So the game missed both windows the clip described. Take-Two’s fiscal year runs to March 31, so fiscal 2025 ended in March 2025. That was more than a year and a half before the current launch date.

What the real Zelnick has said

Zelnick has stuck to the pattern GameSpot described. On Take-Two’s August 7, 2026, earnings call, he said GTA 6 had an exceptional start to pre-orders but did not disclose sales numbers, Variety reported.