The leak that moved the premiere
Trailer 1 was scheduled to premiere on 5 December 2023 at 9 a.m. ET. It did not make that slot. A leaked copy spread on X the night before, and Rockstar published the real trailer on the evening of 4 December 2023 instead, roughly 15 hours ahead of schedule, rather than let a re-encoded copy become the version the world saw [30][27]. Take-Two's December 4 press release confirms the early reveal and the original 2025 console-launch window.[8]
What the reveal established
At 1 minute 31 seconds and set to Tom Petty's "Love Is a Long Road", the trailer did four things at once [30][27]. It confirmed a modern-day Vice City inside the wider state of Leonida, which Rockstar named in the accompanying text [8][30]. It introduced Lucia in what appears to be a prison counselling session. She is the first fully voiced female lead in a mainline GTA, a narrower claim than first playable woman: the original GTA offered female character choices.[30][12] It showed a second lead who would not be properly named until Trailer 2, seventeen months later [30]. And it closed on a card reading "Coming 2025" - a date that has since moved twice, first to 26 May 2026 and then to 19 November 2026 [30][27].
The numbers
Trailer 1 broke YouTube's 24-hour record for a non-music video with more than 93 million views in its first day, beating the previous benchmark of 59.4 million, and it passed 100 million within roughly three days [30]. Wikipedia notes that the trailer went on to surpass the lifetime viewership of Grand Theft Auto V's 2011 reveal trailer [12]. Rockstar's own YouTube upload has since climbed past 290 million views [30].
Was any of it real?
The reveal is a cinematic presentation, not a continuous gameplay test. TweakTown's later coverage repeats a former Rockstar developer's caution about how heavily studios can polish trailer footage. The August 2026 Extended Look gives readers a longer gameplay sample to consider alongside it.[22][18] Vice Atlas classifies Trailer 1's date as 5 December 2023, the date of Rockstar's Newswire post, while the trailer itself went live late on 4 December - both are true, and the difference is the leak [21][30].
What it got right, and what it did not settle
The reveal's biggest claim - that Lucia would be a protagonist rather than a companion - has held up through two trailers and the Extended Look, where she is a playable lead on missions [30][18]. The trailer did not name Jason, did not show Leonida's regional structure, and its "Coming 2025" card became the start of a two-stage delay [30][27]. Its record was YouTube-specific too, and that matters when the two trailers are compared: The 93 million benchmark measures YouTube, unlike Trailer 2's 475 million combined-platform claim.[29]
Where to watch it
Trailer 1 is on the Rockstar Games YouTube channel at youtube.com/watch?v=QdBZY2fkU-0, and it remains on the official GTA VI page alongside Trailer 2 [9][1].
Sources and verification
10 sources, 2 from the official record. Last accessed 6 October 2026. Each numbered marker in the story links to its entry here.
- [1]
- [8]
- [9]
- [12]
- [18]
- [21]
- [22]
- [27]
- [29]
- [30]
