GTA VI Preorders Open June 25 at About $80, Launching November 19 With Two Protagonists in Fictional Florida

Rockstar Games put a number on Grand Theft Auto VI on June 24: about $80 for the standard edition. Preorders open at midnight local time on June 25, and the game launches November 19, the first new entry in the best-selling series in 13 years.

The company's announcement also confirmed a single-player experience and described the game as the biggest, most immersive evolution of the series yet. Anyone who preorders gets a "Vintage Vice City Pack" of older items. Digital preorders also come with a free month of GTA+, the subscription service that lets players drive through more of the older games in the series.

A pricier option exists. The Ultimate Edition costs $99.99 and adds an exclusive collection of premium vehicles, weapons, apparel and action threaded through the story of its two lead characters, Jason and Lucia. Two protagonists is the series' new wrinkle, replacing the usual single lead.

The logistics are specific. GTA VI is built for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It will be sold through the PlayStation store, the Microsoft store, the Rockstar Games store, and global retailers and storefronts. Digital buyers can begin pre-loading on November 12 so the game is ready on launch day. Physical copies, which come with a download code in the box, will also be available starting November 12 to support pre-loading. As of this reporting, the game has not been rated.

The series began in 1997 and lets players work their way through the underworld of different cities. It has become known for adult themes, polished animation and A-list voice casts, including Ray Liotta, Dennis Hopper, Samuel L. Jackson, William Fichtner, James Woods, Debbie Harry, Axl Rose and Peter Fonda.

The story, per the trailer description, follows Jason and Lucia, who have always known the deck is stacked against them. When an easy score goes wrong, they land on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, caught in a criminal conspiracy that stretches across the state of Leonida. They have to rely on each other more than ever to survive.

Leonida is, in effect, Florida. The traditional hub, Vice City, is essentially Miami, which Rockstar's website describes as the glamour, hustle and greed of America captured in a single city. The company's tour of its neighborhoods runs from the pastel art deco hotels and white sands of Ocean Beach to the panaderías of Little Cuba, the bootleg brands of the Tisha-Wocka flea market, and VC Port, billed as the cruise ship capital of the world.

Five more locations round out the map. They are Leonida Keys; the gator-filled Grassrivers; Port Cellhorn, with its cheap motels, shut-down attractions and empty strip malls; Ambrosia, an industrial town with a sugar refinery and a biker gang; and Mount Kalaga, a national park along the state's northern border.

What to watch next: the game's rating, which has not yet been issued, and how the six-location Florida map and the dual-protagonist story hold up once the game launches November 19.