Grand Theft Auto, the iconic franchise from Rockstar Games, remains one of the most popular series in the gaming world. Lately, it's been making headlines more than usual — mainly due to the buzz surrounding GTA VI, which many are calling the biggest game project in industry history. Streams Charts took a closer look at recent trends and analyzed how GTA's popularity on streaming platforms shifted before and after the announcement of the GTA VI delay.
GTA fans have been eagerly awaiting the sixth installment for years, and in 2025, Rockstar Games finally shared some key updates with the community. First, the studio officially announced a delay, pushing GTA VI’s release to May 26, 2026. Shortly after, they dropped a second official trailer, a batch of new screenshots, character bios for the main leads, and even some info on the supporting cast. Naturally, Twitch chats lit up with discussions across the platform.
Dynamics of GTA mentions in Twitch chats
GTA chatter on Twitch hit its peak on December 5, 2023, when Rockstar Games dropped the game’s first official trailer. That day alone saw over 256,000 franchise mentions in Twitch chats. Afterward, the hype gradually died down and didn’t spike again until a year later — in mid-December 2024. This renewed buzz was fueled by the launch of the Agents of Sabotage expansion for Grand Theft Auto Online, which added a new heist mission, vehicles, weapons, cosmetics, and more. The buzz was further amplified by the seasonal GTA+ December 2024 event happening at the same time.
The most recent spike in GTA-related buzz came in May 2025, when Rockstar Games announced a delay for GTA VI and dropped the second official trailer. On May 2, news broke that the game’s release had been pushed from fall 2025 to May 2026. As a result, Twitch chat mentions jumped from the usual 11,000 to 37,000 in just one day. Still, this threefold surge was short-lived — most players weren’t exactly shocked, as delays are pretty common with high-profile releases. The real wave of excitement came a few days later, on May 5, when Rockstar unveiled the second GTA VI trailer. That day, Twitch chats lit up with over 90,000 mentions of the franchise.
In other words, the second GTA VI trailer generated far more conversation on Twitch than the announcement of the delay. Still, the buzz it created was nearly three times smaller than the reaction to the first trailer. Interestingly, all the excitement around GTA VI didn’t really impact viewership in the GTA V category on Twitch — peak weekly numbers held steady at around 500,000 viewers.
The Twitch channel with the most GTA mentions belongs to Argentine streamer Daniel ''Bananirou'' Cao. His stream saw the most chatter during the release of the first trailer — his viewers dropped over 8,600 mentions of the game in chat that day. Between the first and second trailer releases, his channel racked up more than 181,000 GTA-related mentions, the highest among all Twitch streamers. Interestingly, Bananirou stopped streaming on Twitch in the summer of 2024 after making the switch to Kick.
The list of top creators frequently mentioning GTA also includes channels like Kai Cenat, Félix ''xQc'' Lengyel, Juan ''IlloJuan'' García, Saqib ''LIRIK'' Ali Zahid, and other well-known content creators. That said, it’s not accurate to say that GTA is their main franchise. They don’t play it very often, but the game gets mentioned a lot because of their massive audience reach.
A comparison of Grand Theft Auto's popularity with other franchises
Right now, Grand Theft Auto V is one of the top games in livestreaming. By the end of 2024, it became the most-watched game on Twitch, with over 1.39 billion Hours Watched (HW). It easily outpaced League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Valorant, and other esports titles, only trailing behind the non-gaming category, Just Chatting. On other platforms, GTA V holds strong as well — the game is popular worldwide, from the U.S. to Asia.
The number of mentions of the Grand Theft Auto franchise far exceeds that of many other popular game series. For instance, GTA had nearly two million mentions from January 1st to May 8th — almost double the mentions of The Elder Scrolls franchise and three times as many as Elden Ring.
Right now, fans of the Grand Theft Auto series can visit the official website for the new game, which includes plenty of screenshots and extra details. The release date for GTA VI is set for May 26, 2026, though it could still change. One certain thing is that the launch of GTA VI could significantly impact both the gaming industry and livestreaming.
