“Grand Theft Auto” fans have reacted with “shock and relief” after the announcement that “GTA 6” pre-orders are now open, “all but confirming that the game won’t get delayed once more”, said IGN.
Thirteen years after the release of “Grand Theft Auto 5”, the sequel is finally set to launch on 19 November 2026. It is expected to be one of the biggest releases in entertainment history and is projected to generate $7.6 billion (£5.67 billion) in revenue in its first two months alone.
But the journey has been far from smooth. Fans have now “waited two console generations for a new ‘GTA’”, while developer Rockstar “continually pushed back its next blockbuster’s launch – again, and again”.
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Quest for perfection
“GTA 6” was announced in February 2022 and originally scheduled to hit shelves in late 2025, but this was pushed back first to May 2026, then to the current release date, 16 November.
The most recent delay, according to Strauss Zelnick, CEO of game publishers Take-Two Interactive, was due to “limited circumstances where more time was required to polish a title and make sure that it was spectacular”.
For avid fans of the franchise, the reaction to the delay was one of “resignation, frustration, déjà vu”, said the BBC at the time. Rockstar is a “notoriously perfectionist” developer: “Red Dead Redemption 2”, its most recent major release, “is still widely considered a benchmark for open-world video games due to its depth and obsessive attention to detail”.
Alongside broader industry-wide shifts that have made game development “more expensive, more complex”, Rockstar also has to contend with its own hype, with each success “raising ever-higher expectations” for future games.
Speaking in May at the TD Cowen 54th Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, Zelnick stressed that “Grand Theft Auto” titles have never pushed for yearly releases. “What has driven the gap is the amount of time it takes to do something that is as good as it can possibly be for that intellectual property.”
Union-busting
The long wait and repeated delays may also be connected to with Rockstar’s decision to fire more than 30 staff who were trying to unionise, sparking a legal action against the developer.
The employees, the majority of whom were based at the gaming giant’s Edinburgh HQ, were dismissed in October 2025 for what the company called “gross misconduct”, claiming staff had discussed confidential information, including specific game features from upcoming titles, in a public forum.
The sacked workers dispute this, saying they were part of a secure union-focused Discord channel that existed to allow members to discuss unionising the company and improving working conditions. They also claim they were subject to blacklisting, a “practice in which information about workers engaged in union activity is compiled to facilitate discrimination”, said The Register.
The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain called it “the most ruthless act of union busting in the history of the games industry”. The case was raised at Prime Minister’s Questions in December, and Keir Starmer said ministers would investigate the allegations, describing the situation as “deeply concerning”.
This month, Rockstar lost a legal battle “which means fired unionised workers can continue to bring blacklisting claims against the influential games studio”, said Novara Media. The final employment tribunal trial is set to conclude in mid-October, just a month before “GTA 6” is released.
