By Open the official @YouTube channel right now and it doesn’t look like YouTube. The avatar is a pink play button with palm trees, the banner says launch day under six stars, and below it sits a row of scheduled streams in English, Hindi, Spanish, Japanese, Indonesian and Arabic. On November 12 YouTube and Rockstar announced it on the YouTube Blog: GTA 6 launch day gets a 24-hour global live stream on youtube.com/youtube, with creators, gameplay and a finale on the streets of Miami.
When the stream starts
| What | ET | UTC | London |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-show with RDCWorld | 11:00 PM, Nov 18 | 04:00, Nov 19 | 04:00, Nov 19 |
| 24-hour stream begins | 12:00 AM, Nov 19 | 05:00, Nov 19 | 05:00, Nov 19 |
The marathon starts at the minute the game unlocks on the US East Coast. In Japan and Korea that’s 14:00 on November 19, when players there have already had the game for fourteen hours. GTA 6 opens at local midnight in each store region, so by the time the main stream goes live, New Zealand and Australia are well into their first day. The full unlock schedule is on our launch time by country page.
Who’s on the stream
The pre-show is hosted by RDCWorld, the comedy sketch crew. The blog names Caylus, Zhong, Kat, Jelly, Rivers, Jake Baldino and Cinna for the main stream, “and more”. The “more” is on the creator collage YouTube posted: Kinda Funny Games, Loserfruit, TGG, Total Gaming, Payal Gaming, Any Austin, KIMBLUE, Sleepground (잠뜰TV), Akagami no Tomo (赤髪のとも) and more than a dozen others from the US, the UK, Brazil, Mexico, France, India, Indonesia, the UAE, Japan and Korea.
<img src=“/img/media/news-youtube-gta-6-launch-day-creators.webp” alt=“YouTube collage of creators for the 24 Hour GTAVI Live Stream on a pink palm background: Kat Buno, Zhong, Caylus, Cinna, Jelly, Jake Baldino, Loserfruit, TGG, Total Gaming, Sleepground TV, Akagami No Tomo and others, "November 18th 11p ET" in the centre” loading=“lazy” class=“wiki-photo-large” />
Inside the stream: live gameplay, creator podcasts and original shows. It ends with on-the-ground coverage from Miami, the real city Vice City is built on, and creators will be filming launch week there behind the scenes too.
One honest warning. Twenty-four hours of people playing a brand-new story game means twenty-four hours of spoilers. If you want the first missions fresh, mute the tab after the pre-show. Rockstar’s own spoiler rules for creators are worth a look before you open any launch-day stream.
What else YouTube changed
- Yoodle. The YouTube logo on the homepage gets a GTA VI version, and clicking it takes you straight to the broadcast.
- Live gifts. Five limited GTA-themed gifts, one of them called Wanted Stars. Viewers of selected creator streams can claim and send one for free while they last.
- Shorts effect. “GTAVI: Visit Vice City” drops you into Vice City with a choice of backgrounds.
- YouTube Music. The official soundtrack, including Morgan Wallen’s Last Thing You Need, and an anthology playlist of the whole series sit on the homepage for launch week. What’s on the record is in our soundtrack guide.
The numbers behind it
YouTube says the GTA series has passed 900 billion views on the platform over its lifetime, and pre-launch GTA VI videos alone have passed 40 billion. For scale: the first trailer crossed 300 million views on Rockstar’s channel by itself. That’s why the platform isn’t just running ads here. It wants to be the place where people watch the launch together, and for one day it rebuilt its own front door to say so.
I grew up on this series when “watching GTA” meant standing behind a friend’s chair. A day-long stream with a Miami finale is the same thing at the scale of the planet. Still, the moment the game unlocks I’ll have the controller in my hands, and the stream can wait until evening.
FAQ
When does YouTube’s 24-hour GTA 6 stream start?
At 12:00 AM ET on November 19, 2026 (05:00 UTC), on youtube.com/youtube. The pre-show with RDCWorld starts an hour earlier, at 11:00 PM ET on November 18.
Which creators are on the YouTube GTA 6 launch stream?
YouTube names Caylus, Zhong, Kat, Jelly, Rivers, Jake Baldino and Cinna, plus dozens more from around the world, including Kinda Funny Games, Loserfruit, TGG, Total Gaming and Payal Gaming.
What are the GTA VI gifts on YouTube?
Five limited GTA-themed YouTube Live gifts, including Wanted Stars. Viewers of selected creator streams can claim and send one for free while supplies last.