In a recent interview, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick revealed that he has absolute faith in Grand Theft Auto 6, and isn’t worried about players who are new to the franchise being unwilling to engage with it. In fact, he says he can’t think of any reason a grown adult with a console wouldn’t purchase Rockstar’s upcoming game.
“I think we’re gonna have a lot of 17-year-olds playing GTA 6,” Zelnick said (via The Game Business.) “I don’t think there’s any risk of [them] being like, ‘Oh, I didn’t play [GTA] 5, or 4, or 3, or 2, or 1, I’m not showing up [for 6].’ To the contrary, I think we’ll be able to engage every appropriate individual in GTA 6.”
GTA 6 will almost certainly be rated M for Mature (intended for ages 17 and up) by the ESRB, so the 17-and-up age group is Take-Two’s target demographic, and Zelnick says the game will have no problem cornering the market. In fact, he can’t imagine a world where an adult with access to a console wouldn’t want to play GTA 6.
“By the way,” Zelnick said, making direct eye contact with his webcam. “If you have a console and you’re over 17, just explain to me how it is that you’ve decided, ‘No, no GTA 6, [I’m] not interested?'”
As for players potentially aging out of games as they get older and have less free time due to jobs, families, and other responsibilities, Zelnick says it simply isn’t happening.
“It’s not happening,” he asserted. “We stay engaged with the kind of entertainment we fell in love with at 17. Think about it, if I say to you, ‘What kind of music do you like?’ Like everyone else, you’ll say, ‘Oh, I listen to everything.’ That just isn’t true, incidentally. But if I say, ‘Okay, you’re by yourself, you have an hour, and all you’re going to do in this hour is listen to music,’ and [I say] that I want you to have the best possible time and the most relaxing time, you will listen to the music you listened to at the age of 17.”
Zelnick didn’t cite a specific study, but seemed confident GTA 6 will be a hit with teens and adults alike, claiming Take-Two is only growing its audience (and its capital) as adult players continue playing as they age, and younger players get into video games for the first time.
“If you fell in love with video games at 17 and you’re 40, guess what you still do?” he continued. “Play video games. That is why the [gaming] cohort is continuing to grow as we age. I know [gaming investment advisor] Matthew Ball doesn’t believe that, but our experience here at Take-Two is that we are benefitting from industry tailwinds.”
But Zelnick admits this continued growth hinges on GTA 6 getting positive reception.
“We only benefit to the extent we make something great, of course,” he said.
Zelnick also addressed Take-Two’s approach to AI in its games, claiming it’s used to increase efficiency, but could never do the work of humans, and that a game like GTA 6 simply could not be created by AI.
“It’s a laughable notion,” he said of the idea. “It’s just never been the case for entertainment. Certainly there are entertainment businesses that are technically less robust than interactive entertainment–for example, music. And right now there are programs that allow you to put in a prompt and get a ‘professionally’ recorded song spit back out at you. And it sounds like a song, but I defy you to listen to it more than once.”
Initially meant to arrive in Fall 2025, the game was later delayed to May 26, 2026. It is currently scheduled to arrive on November 19, 2026. Take-Two Interactive was one of many video game publishers represented by the IMA Negotiating committee during the SAG-AFTRA video game performers’ strike, in which performers fought for better work conditions, including AI protections.