If you were watching the Philadelphia 76ers at the New York Knicks on NBC on the night of October 20, you saw GTA 6 during a commercial break. It was the game's first TV spot, aired on opening night of the 2026-27 NBA season, and Kotaku collected reports from viewers who caught the same ad (or something close to it) during Pistons vs. Celtics and Thunder vs. Spurs that same evening.

It isn't a new trailer. The spot is a re-cut of the launch trailer released on October 15, with the same footage rearranged to fit American broadcast standards. What got cut, and what was stretched to fill the gaps, says a lot about how Rockstar and Sony are selling the game away from the internet.

What ended up on the cutting-room floor

The frame-by-frame comparisons put together by RockstarINTEL and Kotaku, working from fan recordings, agree on the essentials:

  • Most of the shower. The first shot of Jason and Lucia in the shower survives; the two steamier ones that follow, kiss included, are gone.
  • Lucia's ankle monitor. A split-second shot of the electronic tag on her ankle was also removed. That's the oddest cut, because there's nothing sexual about it: it's story information. TalkEsport, as cited by Martin Cid Magazine, reads the monitor as a sign that Lucia is out on parole.
  • The Xbox logo. The ad closes on PlayStation branding alone.

Guns, robberies, car chases and explosions all stayed exactly where they were. Kotaku summed up the logic with some irony: the missing moments were "a bit too spicy" for TV, while the gunfire sailed through.

What got extra screen time

To make up for the lost seconds, several existing shots run a little longer. None of the sources we read found genuinely new scenes, just extra frames:

  • Raul Bautista dancing, right after the first shower shot;
  • Lucia leaping from the bed of a pickup onto a plane's landing gear;
  • Jason playfully shoving Lucia, who nearly hits the floor (HotHardware thought her hair movement looks "a heck of a lot more impressive" in the TV cut);
  • Jason reaching for a knife while caught in a chokehold;
  • Roxy, of the Real Dimez duo, dancing for a beat longer.

So how many versions are there?

This is where the sources stop lining up, and it's worth explaining why. HotHardware says the NBC spot runs 90 seconds. GameSpot describes two pieces posted by fan accounts on October 21: a 30-second spot and a 90-second one labeled "TV Spot Version 2." RockstarINTEL and Martin Cid, meanwhile, describe a long version plus a 60-second cut that also drops a few opening scenes.

Our read is that Rockstar most likely supplied broadcasters with more than one format (standard practice for a US TV campaign) and different fans recorded different ones. Since Rockstar hasn't posted these versions to its own channel, the exact runtimes rest on home recordings. What every source agrees on is the list of cuts.

Did Xbox really disappear?

The explanation going around comes from a post by the GTA 6 Countdown account, which said the logo was "completely removed due to the deal with PlayStation." That's a fan's explanation, not Rockstar's, and both Kotaku and GameSpot repeat it with that caveat.

There's another discrepancy we couldn't settle. GameSpot and Kotaku treat the logo as something taken out of the TV version, which implies the online trailer had it. Martin Cid says otherwise: the online launch trailer had already dropped Xbox from its end card, and the last one to show both brands was Trailer 2, from May 2025. Among the pages we opened, Rockstar's own launch trailer page carries a "Plays Best on PS5" badge and doesn't mention Xbox anywhere.

For players, nothing changes: GTA 6 launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, on the same day. The risk, as Martin Cid points out, is a casual viewer walking away from a basketball game thinking it's a PlayStation exclusive.

Not the campaign's first trim

On October 15, Kotaku noticed that the giant GTA 6 banner on one of the Les Mercuriales towers in Paris reproduces the cover art with two guns erased: Lucia's pistol in the top-center panel and an assault rifle in the bottom one. The character still has a raised hand, holding nothing. US murals, such as the one in New York, kept their weapons. Nobody has said who asked for the change.

The contrast with the official site is stark. Rockstar's launch trailer page displays the ESRB M rating with the descriptors "Nudity" and "Strong Sexual Content," so Rockstar isn't hiding what's in the game. What changes is the medium: online, the full trailer (past 61 million YouTube views, according to Martin Cid); on broadcast TV and on the side of a French tower block, the well-behaved version.

What about Brazil?

In the sources we read, we found no record of a GTA 6 commercial on Brazilian TV so far. If one shows up, keep in mind the game is rated 18+ by Brazil's ClassInd, and the full, uncut trailer remains on Rockstar's official channel.

The next likely US TV appearance, according to TalkEsport (via Martin Cid), is the Miami Heat's game against the Milwaukee Bucks on November 18, the night before launch, airing nationally on ESPN. That's the same night Miami's arena turns into "Vice City". Rockstar hasn't announced the TV campaign or commented on the edits.