Thanks to GTA Vice (via Digital Foundry), we now know precisely what time you’ll be able to start playing GTA 6 come November 19. And if you live in New Zealand, you’ve got a 19-hour head start on other parts of the world! Rather than opting for one specific moment worldwide, Rockstar has instead opted for a rolling midnight launch all around the world, ensuring spoilers will be floating around for many hours before the game unlocks for slow-poke Americans.
The most anticipated video game in all of human history will first launch at 12 am on November 19 in New Zealand, which is 8 am on November 18 in New York. Which is to say there’s a full 16 hours between the initial launch down under and when it finally releases in the U.S. It’s worth noting the game will unlock for the entirety of the United States at midnight EST, meaning those on the West Coast get a far more reasonable evening launch time.
Australia will get Grand Theft Auto VI second at 10 am EST, and then it’ll ripple around the world, leaving the USA and Canada until almost last (Mexico and Central America are an hour later.) That means even those bastards in the UK will be filling YouTube with legitimate footage of the game five hours before Americans can play.
My suggestion would be to unplug your ethernet cables and switch off your wi-fi for the whole of Wednesday 18, because it’s going to be absolute mayhem out there and pretty impossible to avoid. Perhaps also take further precautions like wearing noise-cancelling headphones and two or three eye masks under a blindfold, and digging a hole in your backyard and sitting in it throughout the day.
Still, Americans tend to get everything else first, so it serves them right. Learn some patience for once. Although it would be genuinely funny to tell Donald Trump that France and Denmark are getting the game hours before, and see how many tariffs he imposes.
