GTA 6 release date announced and why the most wanted game is taking so long

The news of GTA 6’s delay has left people wondering why this has happened in the first place and why development is taking so long.

Late on Thursday night, Rockstar Games casually dropped the bombshell that GTA 6 has been delayed to November 19, 2026, much to the dismay of hardcore gamers, casual fans, and other parts of the games industry – since they’ll need to reorganise their own releases to avoid clashing with the most anticipated video game of all time.

Hopefully, it’ll actually make that date but considering the lofty expectations GTA 6 needs to meet, with both players and the higher-ups at publisher Take-Two Interactive, developer Rockstar Games is not going to feel comfortable releasing it until it’s perfect.

Until then, and for those of you who’ve not been as tuned into the saga of GTA 6, here’s a rundown of everything you need to know about its delay and new release date.

Why is GTA 6 delayed?

Rockstar’s explanation for GTA 6’s delay was very brief, with the studio only saying that the game requires some extra polish.

‘We are sorry for adding additional time to what we realize has been a long wait, but these extra months will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve,’ reads the update on Rockstar’s website.

‘We want to thank you again for your patience and support. While the wait is a little longer, we are incredibly excited for players to experience the sprawling state of Leonida and a return to modern day Vice City.’

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said pretty much the same thing in a statement to IGN: ‘We wanted to give Rockstar the appropriate amount of time to polish the title and make sure it can be the very best it can be.’

Zelnick also said he felt ‘highly confident’ about GTA 6’s new release date, but then he was also confident about the last release date, despite the admitted ‘risk of slippage.’

Considering Rockstar is extremely secretive, even by the games industry standards, it’s unlikely you’ll ever hear of a more detailed explanation for the delay, beyond the need for extra development time and polish.

When was GTA 6 meant to come out?

This is actually the second time GTA 6 has been delayed. Initially, it was aiming to launch in the autumn of 2025. After a long absence of updates, though, it was becoming clear that it wouldn’t meet that target.

Sure enough, back in May, Rockstar admitted the game would not be a 2025 release, though the blow was softened with an exact release date of May 26, 2026 – giving fans something to count down towards.

With GTA 6 now scheduled for November 19, 2026, this means it’ll come out a whole year after it’s original intended release window.

When did development on GTA 6 start?

Exactly when development began on GTA 6 is difficult to pin down. Rockstar’s formal announcement for the sequel was in February 2022, but at that time it said development was ‘well underway,’ which probably means several years of pre-production, at a minimum.

A Bloomberg report from last December claimed that work on GTA 6 technically began a decade ago, though Take-Two has said development didn’t truly start ‘in earnest’ until 2020.

Why is GTA 6 taking so long?

While Rockstar will likely never go into the nitty gritty of GTA 6’s lengthy development, the obvious answer is that it’s simply a really big game and AAA game development in general takes much longer nowadays than it used to.

Just look at Rockstar’s release schedule. For years, it was pumping out games on an annual basis, but after GTA 5, it would be five years until its next major release – Red Dead Redemption 2 – and it hasn’t had an entirely new game since.

Although a lot of key info about GTA 6 is still under wraps, its map is expected to be massive, based on leaked details, and combined with how photorealistic the graphics are, it’s no wonder Rockstar’s taking so long.

This is typical across the modern industry and is why studios have often relied on remasters and re-releases to help plug the gaps in their schedules and ease the wait for brand new games – which is exactly what happened with GTA: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition.

How much has GTA 6 cost to make?

Game development budgets are almost never made public without a leak, so don’t expect Rockstar to ever share that information, even after GTA 6 comes out.

Last year, thanks to the infamous hacking incident that saw a lot of confidential info about GTA 6 shared online, it was alleged that the game’s estimated budget was $2 billion (about £1.5 billion).

If accurate, that would easily make it the most expensive video game ever made, but it’s best not to take this as a hard fact considering where the info came from.

At the very least, it’s bound to cost more than what it took to make GTA 5, which is estimated to have cost around $265 million (about £202 million). That’s roughly what a current triple-A game costs nowadays but was a huge amount at the time.

When did GTA 5 come out?

GTA 5’s initial launch was all the way back in 2013, on September 17 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This means there was never an original GTA game made for the eighth generation of consoles – the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Not that Rockstar needed to have a new GTA game for that generation. GTA 5 has been a continuous success thanks to multiple re-releases across PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Its multiplayer component, GTA Online, has kept people engaged and spending money on the game thanks to its regular cadence of content updates. It’s continued success is the primary reason why there’s been no rush for GTA 6 and why the delays can afford to be so long.

What platforms will GTA 6 be available for?

GTA 6 will launch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. A PC version will assuredly happen at some point too, but hasn’t been formally announced.

As such, PC owners will be forced to wait even longer to play GTA 6, and probably not any earlier than spring 2027.

How are fans reacting to GTA 6’s delay?

There has been a broad spectrum of reactions to GTA 6’s second delay and none of them are surprising. Some are naturally upset that they have to wait even longer for the game, while others say they fully expected it to be pushed back again.

Whatever the case, people are expressing their emotions through silly jokes, with even brands like Dominos and Guinness World Records taking potshots.

Others, however, are keen to remind people that Rockstar is facing allegations of union busting, after firing more than 30 employees and believe the delay news is an attempt at a distraction from that.

Take-Two has insisted that the employees it fired were guilty of leaking company secrets, but if so none of those supposed secrets have been made public.

The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) disputes Rockstar’s explanation, and recently held two protests outside Take-Two and Rockstar’s offices to demand the employees’ reinstatement.

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