Will Grand Theft Auto 6 break the internet?
Back in September 2025, the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong crashed the digital storefronts of Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam, as players who had waited over eight years for a follow-up to 2017's Hollow Knight rushed to download the highly anticipated sequel. Read more
The upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto 6 has generated significant buzz, with pre-orders already reaching nearly 8 million players. Unlike its predecessor, GTA 5, which launched in 2013, GTA 6 will be a digital-only release, requiring players to download the 212GB game ahead of the November 19 launch. This massive size and volume of downloads has raised concerns about the ability of PlayStation and Xbox digital storefronts to handle the strain.
Industry experts predict that both platform holders will bolster their server capacity to accommodate the launch, and the ability to pre-load the game well in advance should help to ease the burden on download servers. However, the real challenge may come on launch day when tens of millions of players are expected to download the game simultaneously.
Network providers such as CityFibre are confident that their infrastructure can handle the high traffic, but acknowledge that the launch of GTA 6 could result in a record-breaking peak transfer rate.
Written by urgent.news from GamesIndustry's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
