Trailer 1 — 5 December 2023
The first trailer arrived after a low-quality leak forced Rockstar to move up the official reveal. It revealed the title, the two protagonists, the Vice City/Leonida setting, and a release window (2025, which would later shift twice). It broke records: 46 million views in 12 hours, 93 million in 24 hours, and became the most-liked game trailer in history at the time. Its music was Tom Petty's "Love Is a Long Road" — the song saw a near-37,000% jump in Spotify streams the following week.
Trailer 2 — 6 May 2025
The second trailer revealed the protagonists' full names — Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval — something the first trailer hadn't done. Rockstar publicly reiterated that the footage was cutscenes and gameplay captured on PlayStation 5 hardware, after some viewers doubted the graphical fidelity. Alongside the trailer, the official website got an update with 70 screenshots and character and location descriptions — that update is where names like Cal Hampton, Boobie Ike and Dre'Quan Priest came from. The soundtrack included "Hot Together" (Pointer Sisters), "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" (Wang Chung), "Child Support" (Zenglen) and "Talkin' to Myself Again" (Tammy Wynette). Within 24 hours, the trailer racked up over 475 million views across all platforms — surpassing Deadpool & Wolverine's video launch as the biggest of all time up to that point.
The pattern
Each trailer delivered less "plot reveal" and more factual confirmation — names, setting, release windows — while the viewership records show just how large the anticipation for this game is. It's reasonable to expect a third trailer, closer to 19 November 2026, to focus on gameplay and mechanics.
