Internet service providers across the UK are bracing for a protracted period of network strain as Rockstar begin the release of their long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI video game, which is currently expected to require a c.210GB (GigaByte) download on PlayStation 5 consoles and potentially as much as c.240GB on the Xbox Series X.<\/p>\n
We don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that GTA6 will be the biggest video game release of 2026, not only in terms of its raw popularity but possibly also in terms of its potential file size (a few other titles are in the same ballpark though). A recent leak strongly indicated that PS5 owners will need to download 210GB of data to play the game, which also enables us to roughly predict that this could be even higher for Xbox Series X owners.<\/p>\n
The reason for the potential difference in file size comes down to the fact that Sony’s console utilises a special data compression technology called Kraken<\/strong> (not related to the cloud-based Kraken platform from Octopus), which has across many recent video game releases tended to be around 20-35% better at compressing games for download than the Xbox.<\/p>\n Suffice to say that’s a significant amount of data, not only for the storage drive on your console but also for broadband ISPs and their networks to shift. Thankfully Rockstar<\/strong> will help to mitigate the extra network load this will bring by allowing the first digital preorders to begin preloading the game on 12th November, a week before the official 19th November release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Spreading the load over a longer window will definitely help.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, at 210GB in size a broadband user on an unloaded (i.e. no other capacity demands) 100Mbps connection is going to be waiting nearly 5 hours before they can complete the download, while somebody with a 1Gbps line should get that down in 28 minutes (best case). The reality is that such heavy demands may have a small to modest impact on some connection speeds, although most ISPs are usually pretty good at mitigating this.<\/p>\n Broadband ISPs typically harness sophisticated Content Delivery Networks<\/strong> (CDN) and other systems to manage the load from such big events, which caches popular content closer in their network to users (i.e. improves performance without adding strain, which also keeps costs down). But not all providers have the same quality of arrangements in place, so experiences do vary.<\/p>\n