Best Buy Leaks GTA 6 Pre-Orders Starting May 18

After two delays and over a year of near-silence from Rockstar, the first concrete sign that GTA 6 is actually heading toward a finish line just leaked from the most mundane source imaginable: a Best Buy affiliate email.

Multiple online creators, including Frogboyx1Gaming, received emails from Best Buy on May 13 detailing a pre-order window for physical copies of Grand Theft Auto 6 running from May 18 through May 21. The emails also mention a 5% affiliate commission for anyone who drives sales through their link. Other users have uploaded video evidence of the same email landing in their inboxes, and the GTA6Alerts account on X compiled the reports on May 14. This isn't a single screenshot from an anonymous source; it's the same email showing up across multiple recipients.

The timing matters more than the leak itself. GTA 6 was originally targeting autumn 2025, then got pushed to May 2026, then pushed again to its current November 19 date. Every delay eroded a little more confidence that Rockstar had a firm handle on the schedule. A retailer opening pre-orders five months before launch, with a specific four-day window and affiliate infrastructure already in place, is about as close to a locked release date as you get without Rockstar saying the words out loud. Take-Two's next earnings call lands on May 21, the same day the pre-order window closes, which feels like more than coincidence.

Six Editions, One Big Question

An insider going by DetectiveSeeds, who claims to have known about the May 18 pre-order date before the Best Buy emails surfaced, has shared additional details. According to their posts on X, there will be six ways to purchase GTA 6 at pre-order: three digital/physical tiers following the standard, deluxe, and ultimate structure most AAA games use now; one rarer edition with additional physical items (almost certainly a collector's edition); and two console bundles tied to PS5 Pro and standard hardware. DetectiveSeeds also claims some versions will include early access, though no specifics on how many days that means.

On pricing, the insider says GTA 6 will land in the $60 to $80 range for the base game, which would put it in line with current AAA pricing rather than the $100 figure that's been floating around since early last year. I'd be relieved if that holds. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has talked around the price for months without confirming a number, and a $100 base price for a game that will almost certainly have an online mode stuffed with microtransactions would have been a hostile move. Sixty to eighty dollars is standard. Anything above that, and Rockstar would be testing goodwill it hasn't fully earned back after years of GTA Online's aggressive monetisation.

The pre-order leak has also sent GTA fans into a frenzy on Rockstar's social media. The studio posts routine GTA Online and Red Dead Online updates most weekday mornings, and those posts have been getting absolutely buried in replies from people expecting a trailer drop. A Red Dead Online post on May 12, which happened to coincide with a rumoured trailer date, pulled over 8,000 replies. Yesterday's GTA Online post hit 4,500, and this morning's Community Race Series update matched that number in under 40 minutes. The ratio of comments to likes on these routine posts is funny, a community so wound up that a GTA Online double-cash event reads like a personal insult.

DetectiveSeeds also claims that trailer 3 will go live before pre-orders open on May 18, which means we could be days away from the first new GTA 6 footage since the second trailer dropped over a year ago. If that's accurate, Rockstar is about to flip the switch on a full marketing push that lines up with everything Zelnick has been hinting at about summer 2026. Between the trailer, the pre-orders, the earnings call, and Sony's confirmed marketing deal pushing PS4 owners to upgrade, the pieces are all pointing the same direction.

I'll say this: if pre-orders open on Monday and Rockstar drops a trailer this weekend, it'll be the most coordinated rollout the studio has done since GTA 5's original reveal cycle. After two delays and months of radio silence, they need it to land clean. The development cost has been reported between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, and Take-Two needs this game to not just sell well but to sell at a pace that justifies that spend on its next earnings call. Pre-orders opening three days before that call gives analysts exactly the data point they've been waiting for.