GTA 6 Launch Trailer, Album and Radio: Everything Rockstar Has Announced About the Music

In the four weeks between September 17 and October 15, Rockstar made three separate announcements about how Grand Theft Auto VI sounds: a 34-track companion album, the first look at the in-game radio, and a Launch Trailer built around a new song. All three came through the Rockstar Newswire, so everything in this summary is official unless we say otherwise. Where Rockstar has not said something, we mark it as unknown rather than fill the gap.

The Launch Trailer (October 15)

Rockstar published the Launch Trailer on its YouTube channel on October 15. It runs 90 seconds - a fraction of the 26:48 Extended Look that Rockstar released on August 27, which remains the long-form source for how the game actually plays.

The trailer's main piece of news is its music. It debuts 'Flower in a Hurricane', credited to Justice featuring Tame Impala, SZA, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Rockstar's post also confirms that Justice composed the game's original score - the music written for the game itself, as distinct from the licensed songs that play on the radio stations.

Rockstar has not said how much original score the game contains or where it is used, and it has not said whether 'Flower in a Hurricane' appears in the game, on the radio or on The Album. The trailer premiered the song; anything beyond that is not yet stated.

GTA VI: The Album (September 17)

On September 17 Rockstar announced GTA VI: The Album, released with Atlantic Records. It has 34 tracks and comes out on November 19, the same day as the game. Six singles were released on the day of the announcement, including tracks from Travis Scott, Morgan Wallen, Rauw Alejandro, Keith Richards and Yung Lean.

That spread of names is wide, and it is the most concrete indication so far of the range of music attached to the game. But an album is a separate product from the soundtrack, and Rockstar's announcement does not say how the two overlap. Three things in particular are not established:

• Whether the 34 album tracks also play on the in-game radio stations.
• Whether 'Flower in a Hurricane', which debuted a month later in the Launch Trailer, is one of the 34.
• The full tracklist. Beyond the singles released on September 17, we have not seen a confirmed list of the remaining tracks.

The radio stations (October 8)

Rockstar's October 8 post introduced six radio stations and named the hosts of each. This is the full list as Rockstar published it:

On-demand podcasts

The same post announced on-demand podcasts, which Rockstar describes as a first-ever. The distinction that matters is in the name: on-demand means a podcast you choose to play, rather than talk programming you happen to catch while a station is running. The number of podcasts, their titles and their hosts are not covered in the material we have checked.

Listening on foot

Rockstar also confirmed that the radio and podcasts can be heard on foot, through headphones or earbuds. In practice that means music and talk are not tied to being in a vehicle. Rockstar has not described the controls or any limits on when the feature is available.

What is confirmed and what is not