The highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI trailer has shattered records by amassing 85 million views in just 22 hours, surpassing the previous record held by a MrBeast video for most YouTube views in 24 hours. This excludes music videos, but the level of excitement surrounding this long-awaited game could potentially surpass those records as well. Currently, the most viewed YouTube video in 24 hours is the music video for BTS’ song “Butter,” which garnered 108 million views within that timeframe.
The anticipation for Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) has been building for over a decade. The previous installment in the franchise, Grand Theft Auto V, was released over 10 years ago in September 2013. According to Guinness World Records, it achieved the record for “highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours,” raking in $815.7 million on its release day from the sale of 11.21 million copies. It currently holds the title of the second-best-selling video game of all time, only trailing behind Minecraft.
Rockstar Games, the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, had originally planned to release the trailer on Tuesday morning. However, the trailer was leaked on Twitter a day earlier, prompting Rockstar to officially release the trailer and have the leaked version removed.
“Our trailer has leaked, so please watch the official version on YouTube,” Rockstar announced on Twitter. The post itself garnered 1.1 million likes and 82 million views.
Prior to this, MrBeast set the record for most YouTube views in 24 hours, excluding music videos. His August video, featuring contestants from “every country” competing in various challenges, received 59.4 million views in its first day. In one of the YouTuber’s most popular videos, he recreated the Netflix hit “Squid Game” (without causing harm). Considering the nature of Grand Theft Auto, let’s hope MrBeast doesn’t attempt a bank robbery or a prison break recreation.
We will update this post if Grand Theft Auto manages to surpass BTS’ “Butter” video views. In the meantime, here’s the trailer for GTA 6, set to be released in 2025.
