Grand Theft Auto VI is now set to release on May 26, 2026.
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.
Sincerely,
Rockstar Games
Rockstar’s lengthy development cycle on their latest can be attributed to a few factors. First, there’s the ballooning scope of big-budget games, with more labor and time put into new projects to push minor increases in graphical fidelity. While Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out only a year after GTA III, it took Grand Theft Auto V five years to follow up GTA IV. On top of this, Rockstar is known for their over-the-top (and arguably excessive) attention to detail, which likely further exacerbates development time. Rockstar North, the studio that generally leads mainline GTA entries, also assisted with Red Dead Redemption 2, which likely further pulled resources from GTA VI.
Another major factor is that Rockstar has seemingly been raking it in: GTA V is the second-highest-selling game in history, moving over 210 million copies while making billions of dollars. The game’s online mode has proven popular and lucrative over the years, with the studio charging in-game microtransactions in the form of “Shark Cards.”
However, most charitably interpreted, perhaps the long wait for Grand Theft Auto VI can be partially tied to the company’s alleged improved work conditions in recent years. After years of Rockstar being infamous for crunch, reporter Jason Schreier (who authored the previously linked article) wrote on Blueksy that the studio has had little faith in the Fall 2025 release window for some time, partly because management wanted to avoid crunch to finish the game. Furthermore, he wrote that those he’s talked to at Rockstar said that, at least so far, the working conditions on Grand Theft Auto VI are “night and day from previous projects.”
All in all, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see if Grand Theft Auto VI can live up to the decade-plus of anticipation. For example, how will it deal with the fact that its previous satirical takes on America feel positively benign compared to the nightmarish direction the country has gone in just the last 100 days? Will its writing be less aggressively juvenile and more in keeping with Red Dead Redemption 2’s moderately more thoughtful approach? Will it be able to move past the massive, unprecedented leaks? Will it cost $80, as many industry pundits predict, or perhaps even more? It seems we’ll have to get through another year to find out.
