Annual leave bookings for 19 November, the day Grand Theft Auto VI lands, are up 29% on last year, Employment Hero data has revealed.
Annual leave bookings for Thursday 19 November are up 29% on the comparable day last year, according to new data from employment platform Employment Hero. It is the same day Rockstar Games releases Grand Theft Auto VI.
Across a fixed sample of 870,275 Australian employees, 0.53% had leave booked for the date at least nine days out. On the third Thursday of November 2025, the figure was 0.41%.
Men aged 18 to 44 account for most of the jump. Bookings in that group rose from 0.37% to 0.69%.
“Males aged 18-44 are driving the increase, with leave requests in this cohort up 84%. Despite making up less than a third of the workforce our data tracks, they account for three quarters of the increase in leave,” says Lisa Cowie, Global Insights Lead at Employment Hero.
About half of Thursday bookings typically arrive in the final nine days, and the company expects more requests before launch.
What is GTA 6?
Grand Theft Auto VI is the next mainline instalment in Rockstar Games’ open-world crime series, and the first since GTA V arrived in September 2013. Rockstar is owned by Nasdaq-listed Take-Two Interactive.
The game is set in Leonida, Rockstar’s take on Florida, with Vice City, its stand-in for Miami, at the centre. The series first visited Vice City in 2002.
Players follow Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, a criminal couple drawn into a wider conspiracy after a heist goes wrong. Lucia is the first female lead in a modern GTA game.
When is it out?
Thursday 19 November, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Players with a digital pre-order can pre-load the game from today.
The release has slipped twice. Rockstar first targeted late 2025, then 26 May 2026, before moving to November to allow more polish.
There is no PC version yet. Industry reports point to early 2027.
How much will it cost in Australia?
The Standard Edition is A$129.95 and the Ultimate Edition A$159.95. In the US, the two editions sell for US$79.99 and US$99.99. Some local retailers are selling physical copies for slightly less.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has defended the price, arguing that game prices have failed to keep pace with inflation over the past two decades.
The Australian Classification Board has rated the game R18+, citing high-impact violence, sex scenes and drug use. That rating carries weight online, where eSafety rules require age assurance for R18+ games.
Why the hype?
The wait has been 13 years, and the last game set a high bar. GTA V has sold more than 230 million units since 2013, according to Take-Two, across three console generations.
The trailers broke records. The first, released in December 2023, drew 90.4 million YouTube views in 24 hours, a Guinness World Record for a video game trailer. The second, in May 2025, reportedly reached 475 million views across platforms in its first day.
Rockstar followed with an extended preview of the game in August, staged as a Netflix special.
What’s riding on it for Take-Two?
Take-Two said on 9 November that GTA VI pre-orders are tracking well above its initial expectations. It held its net bookings forecast for the year to March 2027 at US$8 billion to US$8.2 billion.
The launch arrives after a soft quarter. Net bookings fell 18% to US$1.60 billion in the three months to September, below the company’s own guidance.
Market researcher Newzoo has forecast first-week sales of at least US$3.25 billion, based on pre-orders.
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