This time, gamesindustry.biz reports, the launch is the first AAA blockbuster of this scale to ship digital-only — everyone who wants the game must download its 212GB file, a stark contrast to Silksong's svelte 8GB on Steam.

Pre-loading begins at midnight on November 10, giving players nine days to pull the bulk of the data before launch.

gamesindustry.biz points to September 2025, when Hollow Knight: Silksong crashed the digital storefronts of Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox and Steam as fans rushed to download the sequel after an eight-year wait.

According to gamesindustry.biz, Silksong had no pre-orders, so the entire purchase and download hit the stores in the same minute — and the stores buckled.

GTA 6 is orders of magnitude bigger: Sensor Tower estimates cited by gamesindustry.biz put pre-orders at nearly 8 million players, versus Silksong's 7 million units in three months.

gamesindustry.biz reports the heavy lifting sits with Sony and Microsoft, not Rockstar, whose online component is still further down the line.

Former Sony PSN chief Gordon Thornton, now at ZBD, told gamesindustry.biz that pre-loading turns launch minute into "just a key exchange," and says "they have this handled."

Simon Carless of GameDiscoverCo, also cited by gamesindustry.biz, notes Black Myth Wukong's Steam pre-load in 2024 spiked bandwidth to 70 terabits per second — and GTA 6's files are bigger, with likely multiples more pre-loaders.

gamesindustry.biz notes the industry is heading toward an all-digital future where huge downloads are the only option, and CityFibre's Neil McRae says launch day will still be extremely busy, warning that "people's chances of being among the first to experience GTA 6 rest entirely on the quality of their network connection."

Joost van Dreunen expects local congestion on the evening of November 19 in the US and Europe — a local story, not a global one.