The developer's highly anticipated GTA VI, initially scheduled to launch on the 26th of May the coming year, has been delayed again – this time to the end of 2026. It has now been close to 24 months since the title's announcement, and over a dozen years since Grand Theft Auto V was released on the market.
“GTA VI will now release on November 19, 2026, a Thursday,” reads the company's official statement on X. “We are sorry for adding additional time to what we recognize has been a long wait, but these extra months will enable us to finish the game with the level of polish you have grown accustomed to and deserve.”
The eagerly awaited game stars a intimately linked duo of outlaws named Lucia and Jason in Rockstar’s sun-drenched version of Miami, Vice City, and the wider Florida-like state of Leonida. Development has been underway at the Edinburgh studio in Scotland, with support from the company’s other studios in NY and worldwide, since 2018. Its initial launch timeframe was the latter part of 2025.
It has been hoped that Grand Theft Auto VI would reinvigorate an struggling games industry, which has experienced a decline after a Covid-era boom. Based on publishing giant Take-Two’s latest financial reports, its forerunner Grand Theft Auto V has earned $8.6bn since its 2013 release. The studio's last game, the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2, was released in 2018 and achieved $725 million in sales over its opening weekend.
Gamers, meanwhile, have had a very long time to look forward to the developer's newest release: even by the norms of the video games industry, where six-year development periods for major titles are not unusual, the over twelve-year anticipation for GTA VI has been extensive.
