On November 19 every stream you open is going to be Vice City. Every single one. Grand Theft Auto VI comes out that Thursday on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, no PC at launch, and the streaming world has been planning for this day longer than some of these streamers have been streaming.
So the question isn't whether you're watching GTA VI streams, it's whose. I went through who's actually got a plan and these are the ones I'd tune into first. No order, just the ones worth your time.
And I'll say why this matters to me plainly. For a lot of us, GTA was never just a game you played alone. It was passing the controller, it was the cheat codes written on a piece of paper, it was watching your big cousin do the missions you couldn't beat. Watching a stream on launch day is the closest thing to that couch now. If you haven't locked in which games you're playing this month, I broke down every November release worth your money too.
Who to watch on GTA VI day one
Kai Cenat
Twitch and YouTube | Five game warmup started Nov 5
He's replaying the whole 3D era before VI even drops.
Kai put it out on X that he was starting a marathon on November 5 at 3 PM ET going through GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, GTA IV, and GTA V in order, two weeks out from launch, on Twitch and YouTube at the same time. And he's said he's going to marathon GTA VI until it's 100% complete and he doesn't know when the stream ends. Whether he really goes zero sleep or not, nobody's going to have more context on this series on day one than Kai.
Why I'm watching: He's not just playing GTA VI, he's playing the history that got us here.
IShowSpeed
YouTube | Reportedly going for first
Speed is reportedly trying to be the first streamer on Earth to play it.
A fan account that tracks him posted that he's heading to New Zealand so he can play it about 18 hours ahead of the US. Speed hasn't said that himself, so take it as that. What is confirmed is when Rockstar dropped the Extended Look on Netflix in August, Speed was live reacting to it and the stream couldn't even load at first because the servers crashed. His take was the graphics were crazy but it felt like GTA V. Watching Speed decide if he was right is going to be worth it either way.
Why I'm watching: Nobody reacts to a new world like Speed does.
N3on
Kick | The streamer who might already be in it
People think Rockstar put him in the game.
When the Netflix Extended Look dropped, fans noticed a streamer character that looks just like N3on, and he went and recreated the look on an IRL stream. Rockstar hasn't said who that character is based on. But if N3on runs into himself in Vice City on stream, that's the clip of launch week.
Why I'm watching: For the moment he finds the character, if he finds him.
The GTA RP crowd
Twitch and Kick | Burn, Kaysan, Will Neff and the rest
The people who kept GTA V alive for a decade have to decide what's next.
Best Role Play Streamer at the Streamer Awards this year is Burn, Critical Role, Kaysan, and Will Neff, and GTA RP is a whole genre that lives on GTA V servers. GTA VI is launching on consoles only with no PC version yet, so day one RP the way they do it now isn't happening. Watching how these streamers play VI straight, and what they say about moving their worlds over, is the most interesting long term story of this whole launch.
Why I'm watching: This is where the next ten years of GTA streaming gets decided.
The bottom line
Kai if you want the marathon, Speed if you want the reactions, N3on if you want the chaos, and the RP streamers if you want to know where this is all going. Pick one and leave it on in the background while you play your own copy.
And if launch week makes you want to start streaming yourself, start with the setup, here's the streamer essentials I'd actually buy.
Who are you watching on the 19th? Drop it in the CXM Discord, and if you're streaming it yourself, post your link in there too.
Your call
Did I get this ranking right?
In this story
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