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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.
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?
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.
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?
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.”
As a reminder, here it is, because it is a Very Good TrailerTM.
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.
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”.
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.”
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!
