“Is GTA 6’s Delayed Release Creating More Chaos than Anticipation?”

Every gamer knows the name Grand Theft Auto, and the excitement surrounding its upcoming installment, GTA VI, is palpable—almost like the feeling before a first date! Announced in December 2023 with a tantalizing trailer featuring Lucia, our first playable female protagonist, this game has quickly become a titanic phenomenon in the gaming world. But wait… what’s this? Twelve months have passed without a proper update, and the only nugget of information we have is a vague release date pegged for 2025. This radio silence from Rockstar Games is sending seismic shockwaves through the entire video game industry, making developers wary about their own release schedules. It’s almost as if everyone’s waiting for the “big reveal”—like the last slice of pizza at a party. Will it be the end of the wait, or is a delay looming on the horizon? Let’s dive into why GTA VI’s release date has not just gamers but an entire industry on edge! LEARN MORE

Grand Theft Auto VI is causing problems. And it is all to do with the release date of the hotly anticipated video game.

Easily the most anticipated video game product of all time, GTA 6 was announced in December 2023 where it sent fans of the GTA universe in to overdrive with a 91 second trailer.

Gamers were introduced to Lucia, the first playable female protagonist in the GTA universe. And since then, there has been a big old vacuum of information from developer Rockstar and parent company Take-Two.

We’re now talking more than 12 months without any real update on how the game is getting on, with a release date of 2025 the only information shared in the initial trailer. Well, it is this approach from Rockstar and Take-Two that is starting to cause a domino effect across the video game industry.

GTA 6 date latest

As it stands, ‘2025’ is all we know about GTA 6.

Take-Two issued a company update in the autumn where it spoke about all of its active projects, which included GTA 6 but also the eagerly anticipated Borderlands 4 and Mafia: The Old Country.

In this, Take-Two confirmed 2025 was still happening following community rumours of a delay to 2026.

And on top of that, it specified when in 2025 the game will drop.

“With many exciting new titles coming in fiscal 2026 – including GTA 6 in the Fall, Borderlands 4 and Mafia: The Old Country – we expect to create long-term value for our shareholders,” Take-Two said.

That means GTA 6 should definitely come in September, October, and November 2025, according to the very latest from Take-Two.

Is a delay on the cards? (Rockstar)

Unease over GTA 6 in the industry

Three months is a long time and other developers are getting a bit restless with this, according to reports.

Right now, it has been reported that many planning releases are waiting to see if GTA will fully commit to a specific date in the autumn/fall of 2025 or if a delay to 2026 is actually happening.

And you can’t blame them. Speak to any industry insider and they believe GTA 6 will easily go down as the best selling video game of all time. With it expected to also fetch a hefty price tag, and excess incomes being stretched as the cost of living remains far higher than it did when GTA 5 was released in 2023, there’s only so much money people have for video games.

Not only that, GTA 6 is expected to be a massive game. Sit down to play that and you should be there for a very long time with little time for anything else. No developer in their right mind would want to release their product around the same time; it’s simple business.

Lucia will be the main character of the game (Rockstar)

Release date ‘could slip’, insider says

Gaming analyst Jason Schreier, an insider on all things GTA, reckons a delay to 2026 would be pretty unsurprising.

“I would be shocked if GTA 6 actually made it next year,” he said on the Kinda Funny Games Daily podcast.

“I think that it will probably slip again because Rockstar games always slip.”

He referenced the double delay to Rockstar’s previous gaming masterpiece, Red Dead Redemption 2, which was delayed to spring 2018 and then autumn 2018 before finally being released when in a condition developers thought to be as perfect as it could be. And it was, so you can understand why Rockstar would delay again, if it indeed decides to do so.