GTA 6 was supposed to be 2025's GOTY — here's what happened instead
Rockstar Games was supposed to release Grand Theft Auto 6 in 2025, but two delays resulted in a big GTA 6-sized hole this year.
This wasn’t the original plan. We were supposed to be playing Grand Theft Auto 6 right now, ripping through Vice City on a sun-drenched Bonnie-and-Clyde-style crime spree. GTA 6’s first trailer promised back in December 2023 that we’d get the long-awaited follow-up to Grand Theft Auto 5 sometime in 2025.
But two delays — one that shifted GTA 6’s release date to May 2026, and another that kicked the can to November 2026 — has resulted in a year without the 2025's most-anticipated game. Its absence was certainly felt. Fans of Rockstar Games have had to sustain themselves on new content for Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online, and rereleases of the original Red Dead Redemption.
There was little good news on the GTA 6 front this year, with the one exception that Rockstar Games felt the need to spend more time making its next game and that publisher Take-Two Interactive agreed. Ultimately, the delays should mean a better playing, more stable game when GTA 6 eventually launches.
But double delays for GTA 6 have also eroded confidence that the game’s third announced release window will stick. Will 2026 actually be the year we get Grand Theft Auto 6, or should we hope the world continues to turn until at least 2027?
GTA 6 in 2025: What did and didn’t happen
Image: Rockstar Games
Officially, the infamously tight-lipped Rockstar Games only communicated a pair of delays for Grand Theft Auto 6. In May, Rockstar confirmed the game wouldn’t make 2025, putting a definitive release date on GTA 6: May 26, 2026.
“We are very sorry that this is later than you expected,” Rockstar said in a statement at the time. “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.”
That announcement sent a message to other video game publishers: Stay out of the way, and don’t release your game anywhere near May 2026. And that month is looking pretty light right now in terms of other game releases. Only a handful of games are confirmed for that window, including Paralives (in early access), 007 First Light, and Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. With the exception of IO Interactive’s James Bond game, those other titles don’t really overlap with GTA 6’s expected audience. But remember that 007 First Light was originally expected in March 2026, and with GTA 6 delayed beyond May, IO Interactive had an open window in which to release its new game.
In November of this year, Rockstar dropped some more bad news: GTA 6 was being delayed again, now to Nov. 19, 2026 — basically a full year after the original expected drop date for the game.
“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,” Rockstar said at the time. “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.”
Once again, Rockstar has given other publishers a heads up: The holiday 2026 shopping season belongs to Grand Theft Auto, so plan your 2026 Call of Duty, Halo, and Tomb Raider releases appropriately.
As for another potential slip on GTA 6’s release date? Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told Gameindustry.biz that the publisher is "confident in the date, that's why we set it."
Rockstar ended its year with one of the lowest-key Grand Theft Auto leaks to date. In early December, an animator’s reel showed some in-development animation from GTA 6 before being quickly pulled. After the immense and devastating leaks of previous years, it was pretty underwhelming.
Impact on the industry
Image: Rockstar Games
Grand Theft Auto 6’s absence in 2026 was obvious in a few ways. For one, traditional spending on video games was down in November, a pretty bad month for the industry compared to previous years. According to data from market research firm Circana, video game hardware spending was down 27% year over year, the lowest hardware spending total for November since 2005. And while software spending in November was up 1% year over year, physical software sales dipped 14% for the worst November since 1995.
There are a confluence of factors at play here, including increased hardware prices and a general decrease in physical software purchases. Still, one has to wonder: Would GTA 6’s originally fall 2025 launch plan have resulted in a very different story? (Another unknown: What impact will potentially even higher prices on PlayStation 5 and Xbox consoles in 2026 have on Grand Theft Auto 6’s sales? And with Xbox sales flagging, does it now make sense to fast-track a PC release of GTA 6?)
The fall release season wasn’t exactly light on games. If anyone stayed out of GTA 6’s way, it didn’t strongly reflect in the sheer number of titles released in October and November, which saw AAA fare like Ghost of Yotei, Battlefield 6, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, The Outer Worlds 2, Arc Raiders, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and hundreds more games hit the market.
GTA 6 impacted the industry in another, much more concerning way. In November, Rockstar reportedly terminated some 40 workers, within days of GTA 6’s latest delay. The game developer alleged that those workers were leaking company secrets, but former staffers say they were targeted as part of their efforts to unionize the studio. Anonymous sources at the studio said the firings severely impacted morale at Rockstar Games. "When we should be excited about what's to come over the next year we are now totally deflated and our trust and confidence in others is totally shot," one former employee said on the unofficial GTA Forums.
Impact on GOTY
Image: Rockstar Games
In January, when Grand Theft Auto 6 was still theoretically a 2025 release, we pondered, “Can anything beat GTA 6 for Game of the Year 2025?” while noting that “the biggest threat to GTA 6 taking every GOTY prize in 2025 is Rockstar’s ability to finish it in time.”
It was a reasonable question to ask. While The Last of Us was the standout GOTY darling of 2013, Grand Theft Auto 5 won multiple Game of the Year awards at release, including at Edge, Time, the Golden Joystick Awards, and the Spike Video Game Awards (the predecessor to The Game Awards). Big narrative AAA games like Grand Theft Auto are GOTY awards bait, so its chances would have been very good in 2025.
But GTA 6 as GOTY 2025 was not meant to be. Instead, role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won big this year, nabbing Game of the Year recognition at outlets like IGN and GameSpot, and at events like the Golden Joysticks and The Game Awards. At the latter, Clair Obscur broke records, earning nine trophies.
Awards season might have looked very different if Rockstar’s original plan stuck. The upside is this, though: Grand Theft Auto 6 is now the recipient of back-to-back Most Anticipated Game recognition at The Game Awards, “winning” in 2024 and 2025. No doubt Rockstar isn’t hoping for a three-peat in 2026, which is now looking a little… chaotic.
Again, we’re playing a game of “What if?” when it comes to GTA 6’s impact on the game industry and who wins game of the year, a thought exercise we won’t have to do next year. (Hopefully.)