The GTA 6 Trailer That Leaked and Still Broke YouTube

The Monday nobody planned

Picture the plan. Rockstar has one of the most anticipated games ever made, a first trailer scheduled for a Tuesday morning, and months of silence behind it. Then the video turns up on X a day early.

That is what happened in December 2023, according to TechCrunch. The trailer was due on Tuesday, December 5, and leaked a day ahead of schedule. Rockstar did not wait. It put the official version on YouTube and told people to skip the copy that was already spreading. TechCrunch quotes the post as “Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube.” (TechCrunch) Reported We read that wording through TechCrunch, not on a Rockstar page, so we mark it as press-reported.

Take-Two’s press release is dated December 4, 2023. It is titled “Rockstar Games Announces Grand Theft Auto VI, Coming 2025,” points to “Watch Trailer 1 Now,” and names PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S (Take-Two). Official

You can watch the video yourself right below the short answer. It loads straight from Rockstar’s official channel, only when you press play.

Why the leak did not hurt much

A leak usually steals the moment. Here it mostly moved the clock forward by a day. The trailer was always going to be public within hours, and Rockstar controlled the official upload. Our reading, which is opinion and not a sourced fact: the official YouTube video was the only version that mattered for counting views, so the leak cost Rockstar very little.

What we can say with sources is that the leaked copy was taken down and the official upload became the one people watched (TechCrunch).

The numbers, one source at a time

Every outlet quotes a different view count, and none of them is “the” count. Here is each figure with who said it.

• Guinness World Records: 90,421,491 views in the first 24 hours on YouTube. Guinness recognizes this as the most-viewed videogame trailer on YouTube in 24 hours, and also lists 8.9 million likes (Guinness). Reported Guinness is a third party that measures the record, not Rockstar.
• TechCrunch: 85 million views in 22 hours. TechCrunch wrote its article the day after the release and compared it with the previous non-music record (TechCrunch). Reported

These two figures do not conflict. They describe different moments. A count at 22 hours is lower than a count at 24 hours for the same video, as long as views keep coming in.

Two other numbers matter for context:

• The record it beat. Both Guinness and TechCrunch put MrBeast’s earlier video at 59.4 million views in its first day. Reported
• The record it did not beat. TechCrunch notes that BTS’s “Butter” music video had 108 million views in 24 hours, which is why Trailer 1’s record is for non-music videos (TechCrunch). Reported

We found no view count for this trailer on Rockstar’s or Take-Two’s own pages, so every figure above is third-party reporting. Treat them as snapshots from different clocks, not one final score.

Later trailers have been described with larger numbers. We cover those, and how reliable they are, in the trailers guide.

Four questions to ask about any view-count headline

Trailer 1 is a good test case, because the same video produced two different headlines. Before you repeat any record, check these four things. This is our own checklist, not a sourced claim.

1. Who counted? Guinness is a record body that verifies a figure. A news site is reporting what it saw on the page. A publisher’s own number is a marketing statement. Each deserves a different level of trust.
2. At what hour? Guinness fixes the count at 24 hours. TechCrunch’s figure was taken at 22 hours. Views grow every minute, so a number without a time stamp is half a fact.
3. On which platform? A YouTube count is not an all-platform count. When a company adds several platforms together, the total is not comparable to a single-platform record.
4. Against what category? “Most viewed non-music video” and “most viewed video” are different records. Trailer 1 holds the first, not the second.

If you run into a number that fails one of these tests, treat it as unconfirmed.

What a record like this tells you, and what it does not

It tells you a lot of people were curious. A first trailer after a long silence will always draw a huge crowd.

It does not tell you how many people will buy the game. A view is a click, not a pre-order. If you want to know how the game is selling, the numbers that count come from Take-Two’s earnings reports, not from YouTube.

It also does not say anything about quality. Trailer 1 is a short video showing a build from some point in development. For what Rockstar has actually confirmed about the story, see the story and characters guide.

The promise in the title

Look back at that press release title: “Coming 2025.” That did not happen. Rockstar moved the game to May 26, 2026 (Rockstar), Official and then to November 19, 2026 (Rockstar). Official

So the record-setting trailer came out almost three years before the launch date we have now. That gap is one reason the trailer still gets watched: for many players it is still the first thing they think of when they hear the game’s name. For the date, the price and the editions, go to the release date guide. We do not repeat them here.

A note on the leak itself

The leaked copy was the trailer, which was meant to be public anyway. That is different from the unauthorized material that circulated in 2022 and in 2026, which we do not show or describe. You can read how that history played out in The 2022 GTA 6 leak: what happened, and how to judge newer rumors in the leaks guide.

Quick facts

1. Press release date: December 4, 2023, titled “Rockstar Games Announces Grand Theft Auto VI, Coming 2025.” (Take-Two) Official
2. Leak: The trailer was scheduled for Tuesday morning and leaked on X a day early, and Rockstar posted the official video anyway. (TechCrunch) Reported
3. Guinness count: 90,421,491 views in 24 hours, plus 8.9 million likes. (Guinness) Reported
4. TechCrunch count: 85 million views in 22 hours, ahead of MrBeast’s 59.4 million. (TechCrunch) Reported
5. What it did not beat: BTS’s “Butter” music video, with 108 million views in 24 hours. (TechCrunch) Reported
6. Release plan then vs now: “Coming 2025” became May 26, 2026, then November 19, 2026. (Rockstar) Official