GTA 6 trailer 3 nowhere in sight, despite fan theories

With GTA 6 six months away, fans are trying to figure out Rockstar's next move

Grand Theft Auto fans have decided — or at least convinced themselves — that today is the day for the long-awaited third Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, after more than a year of waiting and regardless of whether developer Rockstar Games has a new look at GTA 6 ready to go. Despite their desperate hopes, there's been no indication that Rockstar plans to release the highly anticipated third GTA 6 trailer any time soon.

As starving Rockstar fans are wont to do, prognosticators have looked to the stars — aka changes to internal databases and numerology — to predict that the third GTA 6 trailer will arrive today. Publisher Take-Two Interactive is holding an earnings call next week, on May 21, and many Rockstar fans are expecting something on or ahead of that date.

We haven't heard a peep about GTA 6 from Rockstar Games in months. The most recent official communication from the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead developer was on Nov. 6, 2025, when Rockstar announced the second delay for GTA 6. Neither Rockstar nor Take-Two have offered any insight into the game's release date, price, or the big marketing rollout for GTA 6, despite it being about six months away.

Since Rockstar Games operates on its own timetable, often announcing delays or dropping game trailers without warning, fans are left to their own devices to fill the void.

Why do GTA fans think May 12 is the day for GTA 6 trailer 3?

There is a long list of circumstantial evidence and pattern matching at play here. For one, the second GTA 6 trailer dropped about a year ago on May 6, 2025, and fans have been hoping that Rockstar will repeat its May drop for trailer 3. GTA 6 trailer 2 dropped nine days before Take-Two's quarterly earnings last year, so fans have extrapolated that the nine-day window is significant. Working backward from Take-Two's May 21 financial report, we land on May 12. Additionally, the last trailer dropped on a Tuesday. May 12 is a Tuesday.

People have also noticed that Rockstar Games updated one of its databases this past week and that Sony Interactive Entertainment recently sent out a notice to PlayStation 4 owners who wishlisted Grand Theft Auto 6 that they should upgrade to a PlayStation 5. Sony also reportedly removed the "Deals" section of the PlayStation Store, leading some to believe that the company will start pushing pre-orders for GTA 6, and has thus de-emphasized deals to make way for Rockstar.

Then there's Game Informer. The magazine used to have a reputation for revealing new games or major news announcements via cover stories, and the latest digital issue of Game Informer drops on May 12. GI's latest issue is not about GTA 6, however — it's about The Blood of Dawnwalker. That's what Game Informer does with its covers now: present deep-dive, thoroughly reported previews and interviews of upcoming AAA games.

Finally, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has recently made multiple public appearances at conferences and in gaming publication interviews, leading some to believe that Zelnick is doing so to hype up GTA 6.

Of course, there are less convincing theories, like this one, which argues that Rockstar has been secretly signaling the release date of GTA 6 trailer 3 in the runtimes of previous trailers:

When does the GTA 6 trailer 3 actually drop?

Barring any leaks, GTA 6 trailer 3 will drop when Rockstar Games is ready to do so. We're still a solid six months away from the planned release date for GTA 6, and Rockstar has plenty of runway to market the sequel. If we're going by precedent, Rockstar released the third trailer for Grand Theft Auto 5 about five months before the game's release. For Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar released that game's third trailer about six months prior to its release.

In other words, if Rockstar follows a similar playbook for Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer 3 we're close to its reveal. Fans will probably get a heads-up ahead of time, but Rockstar may also just decide to drop the next big look at GTA 6 on a random Tuesday.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on Nov. 19.