But, once again, it doesn’t seem to have put a dent in the fervor around the game. GTA VI is so big that even small updates, like a cover art reveal, rack up millions of views.

And this has allowed Rockstar to do things no one else can. “Grand Theft Auto reveals have become cultural moments in their own right,” Netflix exec Brandon Riegg said when announcing the gameplay reveal.

“The anticipation and fandom around Grand Theft Auto VI is unprecedented, and we’re honored that Rockstar Games has partnered with us to debut the next part of the Grand Theft Auto story with Netflix members first.” This mentality isn’t entirely new for Rockstar, but the success of GTA V has allowed the studio to be more confident with how it reveals and launches games, eschewing the traditional news cycle in favor of, well, whatever it wants.

Back in 2016, on a random Sunday afternoon, the studio released an image that was simply its logo on a red background. The internet promptly went into a craze, correctly surmising that Rockstar was teasing the next Red Dead Redemption, an open-world Western series that had been dormant for several years.

That game, Red Dead Redemption 2, went on to sell nearly 90 million copies, giving Rockstar another blockbuster to fill the gap between GTAs. Open-world games have become widespread over the last decade or so, but there’s still no developer that renders its virtual worlds with the level of detail and realism that Rockstar does.

That’s true whether we’re talking about a fictional version of modern California or the Wild West at the turn of the century. It’s also probably why the studio can get away with taking so long with GTA VI; fans have been given plenty of reason to believe that it’ll be worth the wait.

And that’s why the steady stream of leaks has done little to diminish the hype around the game. In fact, they’re almost serving as a form of marketing; Rockstar may be content with a drip feed of news and details, but anxious fans are eager to soak up every new detail about the game, whether it’s official or not.

What happens nextGr and Theft Auto VI launches on November 19th, and it’s coming at a challenging time for the games industry. For basically everyone not named Nintendo, things are not looking good: Hardware is getting prohibitively expensive, physical media is dying, major platforms are in a state of upheaval, and ill-placed bets on live-service games have left the industry reeling.

There are few signs that things will improve anytime soon. Amid all of that, GTA VI stands apart.

It’s a launch so big that nearly every other major publisher and developer is getting out of its way, a game on a scale that has the potential to boost flagging console sales. GTA VI isn’t a fix for everything ailing the industry, and most of its benefits will be temporary for everyone but Rockstar and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive.

There are also still plenty of questions ahead of its release, like what the future for the enduring multiplayer spinoff GTA Online looks like, or whether GTA VI’s satirical slant on Florida will still feel relevant after such a long development cycle. But for at least a few weeks later this year, players can pretend everything is normal while they lay waste to Vice City once again.

By the wayDespite exploring new territory with the GTA VI gameplay reveal, Netflix appears to be slowly retreating from games. It recently closed two more internal studios, including the team behind the interactive horror story Unhinged.

November is mostly quiet for non-GTA releases, but there’s one game that isn’t afraid to go up against the behemoth: The Binding of Isaac: Repentance + Online. Friend of The Verge Joshua Rivera has a great piece in Aftermath looking at how GTA VI’s outsize importance is a terrible thing for the industry at large.

Bloomberg has an interview with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick about GTA VI’s “unprecedented” preorder numbers. Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

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