Grand Theft Auto VI Delayed to May 26, 2026 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 May 2025 / 7,989 Views
Rockstar Games announced it has delayed Grand Theft Auto VI from Fall 2025 to May 26, 2026. It will launch for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
"Grand Theft Auto VI is now set to release on May 26, 2026," said Rockstar Games.
"We are very sorry that this is later than you expected. The interest and excitement surrounding a new Grand Theft Auto has been truly humbling for our entire team. We want to thank you for your support and your patience as we work to finish the game.
"With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations, and Grand Theft Auto VI is no exception. We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.
"We look forward to sharing more information with you soon."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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To absolutely no ones surprise. GTA V was delayed 6 months, RDR 2 a full year.
I will be surprised if this is out before the holidays 2026.
We go from getting the first GTA PS2 games, all three of them, in a span of THREE YEARS, to getting one single GTA in THIRTEEN years. Unreal.
No surprise. And we can all appreciate how necessary it was to release a trailer a year and a half ago just to say nothing afterwards...
Some publishers are going to party tonight
Need extra time for the Switch2 version...
Switch 2 is running on current gen specs. Easily run on it
Even if it runs, it won't run nearly as well so, the odds of Rockstar doing it are slim. They didn't put GTA 3 on Gamecube. They have never put it on a Nintendo console, outside of handhelds. And while this is a handheld... yeah. I mean, it could happen, I guess. Anything could happen. But I wouldn't my breath. Rockstar hates Nintendo lol
They didn’t put it on Gamecube because Nintendo had grown arrogant during the N64 and Gamecube generations. Really, it was Nintendo CEO and Chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi taking a more hands on approach with the company after the pair of Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada became less influential, and it was disastrous. This was before Satoru Iwata flipped Nintendo back to form.
It had less to do with capability and more to do with poor management of third parties by Nintendo during the late SNES, N64, and GBA/GC era. Rockstar North, under its previous name DMA, was part of the Nintendo Dream Team along with Rare, Iguana, Factor 5, and other studios. Third parties with exclusive publishing deals with Nintendo. And, Nintendo treated them quite badly - Square was the first of these to leave - but by the end of the Gamecube era, almost every studio had broken away.
Essentially Nintendo had grown both elitist with their devs, and also a bit controlling with their deals. Some companies, like Rare, thrived for a time - but most found either no advantage, and creatively leashed. And eventually, most of them would leave. Nintendo managed to hold onto a few, and others were peeled off of some of the former Dream Team studios: Retro Studios was harvested from Iguana; Brownie Brown (rebranded as 1-up) and Monolithsoft broke off of Square on their own, and were eventually acquired by Nintendo.
More or less, the working relationship between DMA and Nintendo for their three vehicle games: Space Station Silicon Valley, Body Harvest, and Grand Theft Auto were very rough, especially GTA, which they yanked out of the exclusivity deal, and put on PC and PSX. The break between DMA and Nintendo was bitter. That’s the main reason GTA wasn’t on Nintendo consoles during the early part of the post-Nintendo relationship. Later on, it was largely that they’d established themselves with the PSX/PS2 audience, Xbox established itself as an imitation brand of PlayStation, so it was a natural expansion later on.
Almost 13 years is just not worth it. We got gta 3, vice city, san Andreas, advance, liberty city stories, vice city stories, 4, chinatown wars and 5 from 2001 to 2013. Add in stuff like bully, manhunt 1+2, midnight club games, max payne series, red dead revolver + redemption, la noire etc. I get that games take longer to make now, but it just does not feel worth it.
We will be seeing a lot of launch date announcements for this year in the coming weeks.
Now all the other publishers will move their release dates up lol
Probably to spike the price even further in 2026
I can see now why Rockstar was a little irked with the leaks relating to GTA6, and having their hand forced into such a premature announcement. There was little chance they were in a position to properly assess the release date.
In some cases this can build anticipation, but a most early announcements build fatigue, resentment, and criticism, and might actually hurt sales. I think GTA6 is one of those products that might be hurt in the short term, but the game is likely going to be pushed for the next 4-10 years, so it might not matter in the long run.
It felt like the game was too quiet in terms of information from R* rather than the rumors that appear on the internet every day
Delayed to 26th of May. Sorry, did we actually have an official release date before? What was it?
Not surprised at all. No issue with this. Let them cook i say. It's highly likely to be a highlight of the generation and I'd much rather they take their time to ensure that instead of giving us a Cyberpunk style launch. Bring on May 2026!
I'd rather it launched 2027, so they can polish it more. Maybe 2028 with a ps7 launch would be sweet
Whas to be expected
Take two stock fell 10% market open. Incredible. Sony's also down 1%
Loll. Just as i predicted , but people thought i was crazy
Shame shame shame, 100$ day one release it is then
