Twitch’s CEO Says GTA 6’s Multiplayer Mode Is Coming Next Year, and Take-Two Confirms the Current GTA Online Isn’t Going Anywhere
Grand Theft Auto VI is still two months from launch, but the biggest open question about it has nothing to do with Jason, Lucia or Leonida. It’s what happens to GTA Online once the single-player game arrives. Twitch CEO Dan Clancy just gave fans their best hint yet, telling Bloomberg that multiplayer is coming “next year,” while Take-Two spent its own shareholder meeting the same week carefully avoiding any promise about when.
What Clancy Actually Told Bloomberg
In an interview published this week, Clancy described spending considerable time with Rockstar discussing how the platform can help the studio engage streamers around the November 19 launch. He then went further than Rockstar itself has, predicting a second wave of hype once online play arrives, saying viewership will get “an even bigger one next year when they launch multiplayer.” It’s a striking claim from someone with an inside seat, but it’s worth being clear about what it isn’t: an official Rockstar or Take-Two confirmation. Neither company has said a word publicly about GTA 6 Online’s release window, and reporters who cover the studio closely have noted Take-Two hasn’t even begun discussing what the mode will look like.
Grand Theft Auto VI launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S
Take-Two Isn’t Making Any Promises About the Timeline
Take-Two held its Annual Shareholder Meeting on September 17, the same week Clancy’s comments surfaced, and CEO Strauss Zelnick stuck to a much narrower message. He reiterated that GTA 6 launches as a single-player experience with no recurrent consumer spending planned around that launch, and separately addressed the existing multiplayer game, saying “GTA V Online continues to be a robust business for us.” That’s a reassurance about the game people are already playing today, not a forward-looking pledge about what comes after GTA 6. Whatever Rockstar has planned for a new online mode, the studio and its publisher are still treating it as one of the company’s most closely guarded secrets, something we saw firsthand when a Rockstar executive’s court testimony gave the first real acknowledgment of its 32-player format earlier this month.
Why a Long Gap Wouldn’t Be Unusual
History offers a rough precedent, though not a reassuring one for anyone hoping for a quick turnaround. GTA Online launched on October 1, 2013, roughly two weeks after GTA V’s September 17 debut, and even that short gap was rocky, plagued by server issues at launch. GTA 6 is a far bigger, more ambitious project than GTA V was, and Rockstar has spent this entire marketing cycle keeping multiplayer completely out of the conversation, including in August’s Extended Look gameplay reveal, which focused entirely on the Jason and Lucia storyline. A launch window landing sometime in 2027, as Clancy suggested, would put considerably more distance between the single-player release and online play than fans got with GTA V.
Where This Leaves GTA 6 Online
For now, what we actually know is limited: GTA 6 arrives November 19 without any multiplayer component, the current GTA Online isn’t going anywhere in the meantime, and a Twitch executive with insight into Rockstar’s plans expects a second wave of hype sometime in 2027. Everything else, including the exact release window, features and whether it launches as a free update or its own product, remains something Rockstar hasn’t touched publicly. Expect the studio to stay quiet on specifics until well after the single-player launch has had its moment.
Keep the adventure going! Check out more Gaming News on Gamersuniverse.
Picture Source: Rockstar Games
