GTA 6 has been delayed to 2026

Originally slated for a fall 2025 release, GTA 6 has now officially been delayed to next year. The upside to this otherwise disappointing news for fans of the franchise is we now have an official release date: May 26, 2026.

The devs didn’t have much to say about this change for now, but they shared insight into the main reason for it. In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), Rockstar Games said it needs “extra time to deliver at the level of quality [players] expect and deserve.”

“We are very sorry that this is later than you expected,” the devs added. “The interest and excitement surrounding a new Grand Theft Auto has been truly humbling for our entire team.”

GTA 6 is one of the most anticipated games of all time, so there’s a lot of pressure to get it right, especially since the devs are hoping to “exceed” players’ expectations with this release. They seem committed to delivering top quality with this launch, so to ensure it’s up to their desired standards, they’ve chosen to move the release date by around half a year or so. We don’t know precisely when it was slated for fall 2025, so this change is anywhere from seven to nine months different from when it should have originally launched.

Prior to this announcement, pretty much every other game release date change near the end of 2025 had everyone speculating that it was due to a confirmed GTA 6 release date that hadn’t been revealed to the public just yet. The latest instance of this was Borderlands 4 pushing its release date up by two weeks.

This change is certainly an unfortunate one, but it does at least mean other games can freely launch at the end of the year without worrying about competing with GTA 6. It’s also nice how we finally have a precise launch date to look forward to, since the speculations and theories about when it might be released can finally end.

Although they didn’t have a lot to say on this situation, the devs did end their statement by saying they’re looking forward to sharing more information soon. This means we’ll probably learn more about GTA 6 in the coming months leading up to its new official release date.

Hopefully, this also means we’ll be getting another trailer sometime soon and some more information about what its release will look like, including revealing whether GTA 6 will be available on more platforms than what’s already been revealed.