GTA VI fans are already booking November 19 off work

With Grand Theft Auto VI preloads about to open, some fans have already booked time off for launch day. One worker set aside two weeks to play.

That booking turned up in data from BrightHR, a British HR software provider. The company found that employees mentioned GTA in about 4.6% of time-off requests for November 19 in its U.K. sample. In the U.S., BambooHR recordeda nearly 13% rise in the rate of paid time-off requests for that Thursday compared with equivalent days in 2024 and 2025. The increase covers requests for any reason, though in a separate survey by the company, 18% of salaried U.S. respondents said they planned to take the day off specifically for GTA VI.

The game has also drawn an estimated 7.7 million digital pre-orders worth $751 million as of early November, according to Sensor Tower figures reported by GamesRadar.

Will GTA VI have multiplayer at launch?

Ahead of the preload, PlayStation Game Size spotted three entries in Sony’s backend data for GTA VI: joinSession, launchActivity and launchMultiplayerActivity. The entries tell the PS5 which actions the game can handle, such as opening an activity from the console interface or joining a session through an invitation.

Rockstar has described the November release as a single-player experience. It has yet to say when multiplayer will be available. The previous game rolled out in two stages: GTA V arrived on September 17, 2013, and Rockstar opened GTA Online two weeks later.

What’s confirmed for November 19

The story returns to Vice City and follows Jason and Lucia across Leonida, Rockstar’s fictional take on Florida, after a job goes wrong. On PS5, Sony lists English as the only voice language, with text available in 13 languages.

For anyone who’s already cleared their calendar, Rockstar says digital preloads begin November 10 at midnight local time on PS5 and at midnight GMT on Xbox Series X|S, or 4 a.m. in Dubai. The download requires up to 212 GB of free space, depending on the console. The game unlocks at midnight local time on November 19 on both platforms.