The rumors from September were right: Rockstar Games has finally confirmed the delay of GTA 6. This is the second delay, following the one in the spring that had pushed the launch date, initially set for the end of 2025, to May 26, 2026. The fact that there was an extended date, complete with month and day, might have sounded reassuring, but in the end things will go differently. And GTA 6 will arrive on PS5 and Xbox Series X in just over a year, on November 19, 2026 .
At the time of the first delay, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had gone out on a limb, arguing that historically, once a specific date was set, the company had always been good at sticking to it. But over time, he corrected his position, making statements that didn’t confirm the possibility of a further delay, but at the same time left open the possibility of any further delay.
Rockstar Games needs more time to polish the game as best as possible before launch . And in a gaming landscape where we’re used to seeing highly anticipated titles arrive on the market rough and largely incomplete (did anyone say Cyberpunk 2077 ?) even after long gestations, the desire to present the public with a polished product is ultimately to be appreciated, considering the size and ambition of the project.
On the other hand, the hype surrounding GTA 6 has been sky-high for years: and we’ve likely long since passed the point where it will be difficult to satisfy, simply because it’s so exorbitant. The launch of GTA 6 promises to be a huge event for the gaming landscape, a sort of meteoric impact capable of upending the current landscape, but also of having further implications, turning into a global social phenomenon. What’s certain is that other publishers will continue to be held back until November 2026: no one wants to release major games around the release of GTA 6, understandably, and so we shouldn’t expect much for next winter outside of Rockstar (and probably Nintendo, which is somewhat outside of these calculations).