Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look will hopefully give us the first proper gameplay reveal for GTA 6 — and it will be exclusive to Netflix for six hours. This unprecedented marketing beat has drawn criticism from some who have said Rockstar is effectively paywalling a video game trailer. Meanwhile, many questions remain. Is this extended look along the lines of a standard gameplay trailer? A mini GTA 6 documentary? A Netflix show? Something else entirely? Strauss Zelnick, boss of Rockstar parent company Take-Two, is keeping his cards close to his chest. But in a new interview with IGN, he said everyone will tune in regardless.
Rather than a straightforward GTA 6 Trailer 3, this special event showcase sounds like it will offer fans a far deeper dive on Rockstar’s highly-anticipated blockbuster — over a year after the publisher released GTA 6 Trailer 2. Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look will be available to stream via Netflix on Thursday, August 27 at 12pm Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 8pm UK, six hours before it goes live on YouTube at 6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern on August 27, or 2am UK on August 28.
“I think Rockstar felt that a Netflix release would be a great way to show off the extended trailer,” Zelnick told IGN, without going into specifics on the deal between the streamer and Rockstar itself. “Six hours later it will be available on Rockstar’s YouTube channel and I think ultimately on many other outlets,” he continued. “And I think this is an example of Rockstar trying new things and marketing the title and I hope there’s much more to come.”
I asked Zelnick if he could set expectations for what fans can expect to see from this extended look, or if in his view it is worth subscribing to Netflix for. As expected, he wouldn’t say what Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look contains or even how long it is, but it does sound grander than your typical video game gameplay reveal.
“Well, as you’d imagine, I’m only going to say great things about Netflix,” he said. “If you’re not a Netflix subscriber, you definitely should be one. And as for the trailer itself, it’s coming soon enough that I’ll let you arrive at your own conclusion. I’m sure you’re going to watch it because everyone is.”
Netflix has hundreds of millions of subscribers, so there is a huge audience made up of people who may not even know GTA 6 is coming out who will be exposed to the game through the streaming platform. This is obviously an attractive proposition for Rockstar, even without the undoubtedly compelling terms of the deal it secured.
But going with a big Netflix reveal also suggests Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look will sit naturally within Netflix itself — a major live event of sorts, but a familiar one for the streamer’s vast audience. It might even have the look and feel like an episode of a Netflix show — a one-shot, perhaps, that leaves the viewer desperate to play the game. That GTA 6 tile will surely occupy the number one ‘trending now’ spot as soon as the extended look is released, front and center for all who log into Netflix for the evening searching for something to watch.
The big question is, will Netflix crash as the world logs on for the big GTA 6 reveal event on August 27?
We’ve got plenty more from our interview with Strauss Zelnick today, including his comments on the GTA 6 price points, his defence of GTA 6 not launching on a disc, and his prediction for when video game streaming will actually be good.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].