GTA VI

GTA 6 is officially an $80 game — here's what you get

by · Boing Boing

No, it's immersive, see? Grand Theft Auto 6 is all about pulling daring heists, so Rockstar has ensured you need to pull one in real life before you even get to play it.

In all seriousness, we kind of knew this was coming. With everything gaming-related rising in price and Nintendo testing the waters with $80 games at the Switch 2's launch, it was only a matter of time before the thumbscrews were tightened.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be the video game of the 2020s. In all likelihood, it will take its predecessor's crown as most profitable entertainment product of all time. As it goes, so will the rest of the industry: not one other triple-A game is daring to release in the same month. If anybody could move the needle on standard game pricing, it would be them, and indeed they have. As revealed by a Take-Two press release ahead of preorders (which should be open by the time you read this), the GTA 6 price discourse has finally been put to rest:

Launching November 19, 2026, for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S for $79.99, Grand Theft Auto VI features a single-player experience set in the biggest, most immersive evolution of the series yet. The Grand Theft Auto VI: Ultimate Edition will be available for $99.99.

Eighty dollars standard, a hundred deluxe, no physical version. Kind of a worst-case scenario. To make matters worse, the "ultimate edition" feels more like an "all the stuff we cut out of the game" edition: while weapon skins and bonus vehicles are to be expected, the ultimate edition also comes with access to exclusive in-game stores. In other words, this single-player game cordons off certain map locations unless you hand Rockstar another $20 before launch.

While I'm disappointed, I can't say I'm surprised. The previous GTA game was a golden goose of truly unfathomable proportions, so why wouldn't Rockstar want to maximize that from the very start? Although I hope other publishers won't jack up the standard price to $80 and hide behind the excuse of "well, GTA did it," I'm not quite that much of an optimist.

Previously: