GTA VI pre-load is open, and the game unlocks at midnight on November 19

You can pre-load Grand Theft Auto VI now. It unlocks at midnight local time on Thursday, November 19, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

When pre-load started

Rockstar opened digital pre-loads on Tuesday, November 10, but the two consoles didn't start together.

• PS5: midnight local time on November 10.
• Xbox Series X|S: 12 a.m. GMT on November 10, the same moment everywhere. That was 4 p.m. on Monday, November 9, in Los Angeles, 7 p.m. in Toronto and New York, and 9 p.m. in São Paulo. On Tuesday, November 10, it was 1 a.m. in Paris and Berlin, 4 a.m. in Dubai, 5:30 a.m. in Mumbai, 9 a.m. in Tokyo and 11 a.m. in Sydney.

If you pre-ordered digitally, the download is waiting for you.

How much space to clear

Rockstar puts the pre-load at up to 212 GB, depending on the console. That covers the pre-load only. Rockstar hasn't said whether a launch-day patch is coming, so leave some room past 212 GB and check your free space before you start.

The boxed copy has no disc

The physical version is a download code in a box. Retailers should have it from Thursday, November 12, a week before launch, so a store copy still lets you pre-load. It's the same download, so it needs the same space.

When it unlocks

Rockstar's support page says the game unlocks at midnight local time on November 19, in every region and on both consoles. That makes it a rolling launch. New Zealand gets in first, at 11 a.m. UTC on Wednesday, November 18, and North America comes last.

Rockstar hasn't published a table by time zone, but the stores have. Each country's PlayStation Store and Xbox Store listing carries a release time, and the two consoles show the same one everywhere we checked. In most countries it's midnight in the main time zone. The US and Canada share one window instead: 5 a.m. UTC, which is midnight Eastern. The fan site GTAVice.net spotted that in PlayStation Store listings first, and Dexerto and Kotaku reported it. This is store listing data, not confirmed by Rockstar.

City	Unlock, local time	Same moment in UTC
Sydney	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	1 p.m., Wednesday
Tokyo	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	3 p.m., Wednesday
Mumbai	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	6:30 p.m., Wednesday
Dubai	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	8 p.m., Wednesday
Paris, Berlin	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	11 p.m., Wednesday
London	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	12 a.m., Thursday
São Paulo	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	3 a.m., Thursday
Toronto, New York	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19	5 a.m., Thursday
Los Angeles	9 p.m., Wednesday, November 18	5 a.m., Thursday

Across Canada and the US, that one window lands at:

Time zone	Unlock
Newfoundland	1:30 a.m., Thursday, November 19
Atlantic	1 a.m., Thursday, November 19
Eastern	12 a.m., Thursday, November 19
Central	11 p.m., Wednesday, November 18
Mountain	10 p.m., Wednesday, November 18
Pacific	9 p.m., Wednesday, November 18

The West Coast does best out of this: a Wednesday evening start that Kotaku called "a far more reasonable evening launch time." Australia's stores also use a single time, midnight in Sydney, so players further west there start the evening before too.

Treat the tables as likely, not final. Stores can change a release time before launch, and Dexerto notes that Sony or Rockstar could still adjust the PlayStation timestamps. We'll update this story if the times move.