The GTA 6 release date has finally been confirmed, but it's come with the reveal of a pretty expected delay to 2026.
With it being the most hotly-anticipated game, the news that GTA 6 is delayed is definitely going to cause some ripples in the industry.
We'll be monitoring social media and contacting our own sources to see how far reaching the new GTA 6 2026 date impact is, and will be reporting here live for you to get the full scoop.
But let's start with the actual delay announcement from Rockstar on X/Twitter.
Grand Theft Auto VI is now set to release on May 26, 2026. https://t.co/YgaIn1cYc8 pic.twitter.com/cyeK7GM6ObMay 2, 2025
I do love the fact that Rockstar has gone with the classic Twitter notes app apology, but hey at least we actually have a release date now!
First, let's unpack what the actual statement says.
Obviously it starts with the apology that the new May 26, 2026 is "later than expected" and thanks the players for their "support and... patience".
"With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations, and Grand Theft Auto 6 is no exception. We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve."
Of course, we already knew that GTA 6 was going to be pushing Rockstar's already high envelope of creativity and accomplishments.
The GTA 6 devs themselves teased back in November that they're working on "absolutely mind-blowing things" and promise "more to come".
I am particularly excited that the statement ends with the tease that Rockstar "look forward to sharing more information with you soon".
Traditionally Rockstar does its own thing when it comes to reveals and trailer drops, but with Summer Game Fest 2025 just around the corner in early June, could it be that we something fresh of GTA 6 then?
We've not had anything since that first trailer drop back in December 2023.
As a reminder, here it is, because it is a Very Good TrailerTM.
Jason Schreier has already come out swinging, as you'd expect. Posting on Bluesky, the Bloomberg reporter says "nobody I've talked to at Rockstar has believe Fall 2025 was a real window for a very long time".
"Too much work, not enough time, and what appears to be a real desire from management to avoid brutal crunch."
"GTA 6 slipping to 2026 has seemed inevitable for months if not longer."
Chat about the GTA 6 release date had been spinning this week anyway off the back of the Borderlands 4 release date moving 11 days earlier than the originally announced date.
However, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford quickly jumped on Twitter/X to clarify that the date move was actually nothing to do with GTA 6 or any other product.
Borderlands 4 shipping early is 100% the result of confidence in the game and development trajectory backed by actual tasks and bug find/fix rates. Our decision is literally 0% about any other product’s actual or theoretical launch date.April 30, 2025
At the time, everyone was like 'yeah, yeah, yeah Randy, sure' but turns out it has moved forward because Borderlands 4 is just that ready?
It's interesting that it was only in February this year that Take-Two boss said he was confident in a 2025 launch.
"Look, there's always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like absolutely, you jinx things," CEO Strauss Zelnick told IGN.
Turns out he did jinx it didn't he.
It's been an complicated time of late in the games industry - and that's really underselling it. Between mass layoffs, game cancellations, studio closures and Trump's tariffs, there's a lot going on and not a lot of it good.
Analysts are calling it "unprecedented territory", but the hope was that big releases like Switch 2 and GTA 6 would be a boost for the industry.
"I think folks want to be optimistic about things like Switch 2 and GTA 6 coming into the market," veteran games analyst Mat Piscatella told GamesRadar+ just this week, "but this looming cloud of tariffs and the impact and what's happening on the trade side of things, and how that might impact products like accessories and hardware and that type of thing, it's just, no matter what industry you're looking at, you're looking at this stuff going, okay, what happens next?"
"People are just kind of waiting and seeing what's happening and trying to plan accordingly," he added, "but hopeful that, with Switch 2, with GTA 6, when it comes to the tariffs, the increased presence of digital – which wouldn't be subject to those tariffs, at least not at this stage – lessens those kinds of burns a little bit."
Perhaps actually dating the GTA 6 2026 for May 26 is an attempt to help bridge the gap left by the game in this calendar year?
The removal of GTA 6 from this financial year may well change the plans for other publishers and game developers.
Multiple developers spoke to The Game Business, calling GTA 6 a "huge meteor" with publishers looking to "stay clear of the blast zone. Blizzard's former president, Mike Ybarra, said that "everyone will move their release out of the way" when Rockstar eventually confirms GTA 6's release date.
With everyone allegedly cooking up plans to move out of the way of GTA 6, that original 'fall 2025' release window suddenly looks a lot more wide open.
As a side note, while the Rockstar statement says that the developer is excited to share more with us soon, earlier this year Take-Two did say it wouldn't start marketing GTA 6 until it's closer to release.
It was our pal Zelnick again, this time speaking to Bloomberg, and outlined that although its rvials might market their games for years before release, they've seen it better to hold off until closer to launch.
"We've found that the better thing to do is to provide marketing materials relatively close to the release window in order to create that excitement on the one hand, and balance the excitement with the anticipation. We don't always get it exactly right, but that's what we’re trying to do."
That may mean we don't get anything else on GTA 6 this year and Rockstar is being very loose with the word "soon" in today's statement.
Or maybe the play is not to release a new trailer at all? That'd certainly suit Ex-Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij, who says "the element of surprise is going to make the release only bigger as an event."
Given that we've got a year to wait for GTA 6 now, you'd certainly think Rockstar would show us something? I love me some single-player goodness, but I'm certainly keen to find out what's going on with whatever GTA 6's answer to GTA Online is going to be.
If you're curious about whatever is going on with GTA Online, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick poked at the topic delicately earlier this year. Asked why a GTA Online fan should continue to invest time and money in something that might be replaced soon, Zelnick teased that the publisher has "shown a willingness to support legacy titles when a community wants to be engaged with them."
That's not to say GTA Online 2 has been confirmed or anything, as Zelnick didn't want to be drawn into specifics over unannounced plans, but it does speak to the situation not being as certain as you might think.
Speaking of Zelnick, Take-Two has now issued a statement of its own regarding the GTA 6 delay news. Here it is in full:
“We support fully Rockstar Games taking additional time to realize their creative vision for GTA 6, which promises to be a groundbreaking, blockbuster entertainment experience that exceeds audience expectations,” Zelnick says. “While we take the movement of our titles seriously and appreciate the vast and deep global anticipation for GTA 6, we remain steadfast in our commitment to excellence.
"As we continue to release our phenomenal pipeline, we expect to deliver a multi-year period of growth in our business and enhanced value for our shareholders.”
It's worth noting that Take-Two plans to hold a conference call to discuss its latest financial results on May 15, so expect some more reaction then as you'd imagine plenty of investors will have questions.
You can’t escape us. May 26, 2026 it is then. https://t.co/eVa5bB1vrhMay 2, 2025
Some people are certainly taking the news of the delay in their stride. Cult of the Lamb publisher Devolver Digital is doubling down on plans to launch a game on GTA 6's release date, even if that is now 12 months from now.
"You can't escape us." Ominous!
Some expert analyst views coming in now. Speaking to GamesRadar+, Circana games industry analyst Mat Piscatella says the GTA 6 delay is bad news for the industry, at least this year.
"GTA 6 is a game that would bring relapsed players back to the consoles in particular, and would have been a driver of incremental hardware sales," Piscatella says. "It would have also, if successful, brought potential growth months to the industry (again, particularly on the console side) and may have even worked to reinvigorate investor interest in the segment.
"I don't think anyone benefits in 2025 from this push," he continues. "It wasn't looming over the holiday season, it was going to be a big driver of what success potential the holiday season had."
No one tell that to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 actor Luke Dale, though, who says "we're in with a shot! GOTY" in response to the news. He's not wrong, to be fair.
Some more details from Schreier, who talks about the current work conditions at Rockstar. While the developer made headlines years ago due to the amount of crunch needed to get the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 out the door, the picture has improved since, as developers work to get GTA 6 out the door.
"Skepticism is always healthy, but I've been keeping tabs on this for years (since my big 2018 story about Red Dead 2's crunch)," he says to a BlueSky user who doubts Rockstar is avoiding crunch here. "They certainly haven't eliminated *all* overtime but everyone I've talked to at Rockstar says it's night and day from previous projects. If that changes, I'll report on it."
If you're looking for more analyst reaction, we've spoken to three of the best who tell us just what this means for the industry. If there's one thing that seems certain, "2025 will clearly be the year of Nintendo now."
"Now Nintendo has half a year to prepare and market a potentially big holiday line-up, Sony can release Ghost of Yotei in peace, and Microsoft has more room to possibly release its Xbox handheld," Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japan game industry consultancy Kantan Games, tells GamesRadar+. "However, the double whammy that was supposed to revitalize the game industry overall is now called off."
While the GTA 6 delay is certainly a "bummer," former Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij has a particularly glass-half-full outlook on the whole thing: "The good news is that they are clearly confident they are going to make May," he says. "Otherwise they wouldn't have given a date."
I certainly want to believe. But I've been burned before!
It's not all doom and gloom, however! There's a certain subset of folks that are taking the W where they can get it: Hollow Knight: Silksong fans. That includes our very own staff writer Dustin Bailey.
"The reaction I had could only be described as a live-action version of 'lol, lmao,'" writes Bailey, "and I was soon struck by the realization that, yeah, we're really getting Hollow Knight: Silksong before GTA 6."
With Silksong officially confirmed to launch in 2025, and GTA 6 delayed into 2026, the only way this doesn't happen is if Silksong gets delayed even further. But that wouldn't happen... right?
When GTA 6 was set to release in 2025, there was also an amount of certainty that no matter just how good any other video game released this year was, there was no way it was beating out Rockstar for GOTY awards. Now, whether that's true, who could possibly say, but now it's an impossibility – and one that some folks are pretty excited about.
Take, for example, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's Hans Capon actor Luke Dale. Dale shared the social media announcement of the GTA 6 delay with the caption, "WE'RE IN WITH A SHOT! GOTY!" You know what? Good for them, genuinely.
