Grand Theft Auto 6’s Delay Just Affected the Entire Video Game Industry

Grand Theft Auto fans, determination is immoderate bully quality and immoderate atrocious news. The bully quality is finally, aft each these years, we person an existent day-and-date merchandise clip for GTA 6. The atrocious news? It’s astir six months aboriginal than the ‘Fall 2025’ we were primitively told. To galore successful the video crippled industry, the caller day of May 26, 2026 is simply a invited suspiration of alleviation – dozens of publishers and developers of each sizes were fearful of meticulously readying their merchandise campaigns lone to aboriginal observe they’d beryllium releasing successful the aforesaid period arsenic this herculean title. However, determination are galore undated heavy-hitters owed to onshore adjacent twelvemonth that volition present beryllium frantically searching for a caller date.

What’s wide is that Grand Theft Auto 6 has recovered itself touted arsenic the lynchpin to the video crippled industry’s adjacent aboriginal – immoderate quality connected the project’s improvement has a immense ripple effect. So however does a six-month hold bespeak a important alteration successful Rockstar’s firm culture, telephone into question this year’s console marketplace revenue, and perchance impact the Switch 2?

Last year, the video crippled industry’s full gross deed $184.3 billion, a 0.2% summation from 2023. Contradicting expert predictions of a flimsy downturn, it prompted a suspiration of alleviation for video crippled manufacturers and publishers. However, successful the console space, gross dropped by 1% – and we’re already seeing the consequences. A downturn of console hardware income combined with a heightening exertion tariff warfare has forced prices up for some Microsoft and Sony. This procreation needs a definitive console-shifting rubric – it needs Grand Theft Auto 6.

Research groups estimation the transgression sequel to marque $1 cardinal disconnected pre-orders unsocial and $3.2 cardinal successful its archetypal twelvemonth of launch. It took Grand Theft Auto 5 3 days to marque $1 billion, could it instrumentality Grand Theft Auto 6 conscionable 24 hours? Circana expert Mat Piscatella believes that “there’s astir apt ne'er been a much important happening to ever merchandise successful the industry,” due to the fact that the game’s interaction volition assistance specify our knowing of the video crippled industry’s imaginable maturation implicit the adjacent decade. There are rumors that it could beryllium the first-ever $100 video game, making it a caller watershed infinitesimal for the industry. That caller benchmark could springiness the manufacture the shot-in-the-arm maturation galore analysts accidental it needs. However, it’s besides imaginable Grand Theft Auto 6 is simply excessively overmuch of a monolithic outlier to make advancement extracurricular of itself.

In 2018, Rockstar Games had a publicity situation connected its hands. Reports of 100 hr weeks alongside formerly mandatory overtime whilst processing Red Dead Redemption 2, positive erstwhile and existent employees speaking connected aggravated crunch periods stemming from Grand Theft Auto 4, painted a stark representation of 1 of gaming’s titans. Since then, the institution has reportedly undergone an interior reinvention of sorts – according to a Bloomberg report, contractors being converted to full-time employees and a ‘flexitime’ argumentation enabling workers to instrumentality clip disconnected for each hr of overtime worked are conscionable 2 of the galore much compassionate policies enacted. Earlier this year, Rockstar’s aged estimation threatened to rear its caput arsenic unit were made to instrumentality to the bureau 5 days a week to adjacent retired Grand Theft Auto 6’s improvement – a determination which makes the crushed down the hold beauteous clear. Bloomberg newsman Jason Schreier confirmed arsenic overmuch connected BlueSky, explaining that his ain Rockstar sources said that there’s “Too overmuch work, not capable time, and what appears to beryllium a existent tendency from absorption to debar brutal crunch.” Rockstar can’t decently present a crippled that volition alteration the video gaming satellite if it slips backmost into aged habits; portion the hold is disappointing to those playing, it’s undeniably a immense alleviation to those developing.

If you’re a publisher, releasing your crippled astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic Grand Theft Auto 6 is akin to throwing a bucket of h2o into a tsunami. Discussing the formerly scheduled ‘Fall 2025’ merchandise window, a study by The Game Business highlighted however specified a nebulous day was affecting publishers worldwide. One workplace brag called Rockstar’s crippled “a immense meteor and we’ll conscionable person to enactment wide of the blast zone,” portion different questioned “if we determination retired of 2025, what if Rockstar do, too?” (An unsurprisingly predictive worry). We adjacent person the likes of EA CEO Andrew Wilson implicitly commenting connected the game’s looming shadiness successful the discourse of the caller Battlefield, citing “some things happening successful the twelvemonth that whitethorn origin america to deliberation otherwise astir our motorboat timing.”

However, immense releases don’t ever overshadow those astir them. Despite launching astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic Bethesda’s Oblivion remake, Kepler Interactive’s archetypal RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 inactive sold implicit 1 cardinal copies successful conscionable 3 days, with elder portfolio manager Matt Handrahan adjacent joking that it was the video crippled industry’s Barbenheimer moment. It’s hard to judge specified a infinitesimal tin beryllium for Grand Theft Auto 6, of course, and truthful it goes unsaid that specified a quirky thought volition not beryllium portion of immoderate publisher’s run plans. Don’t expect a Grand Theft Fable infinitesimal successful 2026.

Currently, it’s unclear to what grade the caller May 26, 2026 merchandise day volition shingle up the plans of different publishers and developers. There are inactive galore heavy-hitter titles that are undated including the likes of Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, EA’s caller Battlefield title, Mass Effect spiritual successor Exodus and more. There volition surely beryllium immoderate developers present scrambling to alteration their interior merchandise day plans, but the wider nationalist volition beryllium nary the wiser. However, this emblem planting by Rockstar nary uncertainty means that developers and publishers volition consciousness much assured successful announcing their merchandise plans to the world. But they mightiness privation to clasp connected a minute.

It seems precise improbable that this volition beryllium the last day for Grand Theft Auto 6 for 2 reasons. Both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 were taxable to 2 day delays, with the archetypal hold being to the 2nd 4th of the adjacent year, followed by a 2nd hold to the 3rd 4th of that aforesaid year. Right now, Grand Theft Auto 6 is replicating that nonstop aforesaid timeline, delayed from Fall 2025 to May 2026, truthful 1 much hold to October/November 2026 seems a reasonably educated prediction.

That October/November model seems adjacent much apt erstwhile you see the imaginable for some Microsoft and Sony to make a caller console bundle including the transgression sequel, which volition surely sprout up income astir the vacation period. Sony sold 6.4 cardinal PlayStation 4s during October - December 2014, much than treble the consoles they sold betwixt April and September of that year. Of people determination would person been the classical Christmas boost, but what other happened successful that clip frame? Grand Theft Auto 5 released connected PS4.

What could beryllium the bigger surprise, though , is that Nintendo whitethorn beryllium 1 of the parties astir affected by this delay. Recently, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick pledged afloat enactment for the Switch 2, starring fans to speculate astir if Grand Theft Auto 6 whitethorn besides beryllium eyeing a Switch 2 launch. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy’s Definitive Edition saw a astonishment motorboat onto the Nintendo Switch, truthful there’s precedent for an big franchise connected a typically family-friendly console. Many believed the Switch exertion wasn’t almighty capable to tally a crippled similar Grand Theft Auto, nevertheless past twelvemonth modders released a video showing disconnected an in-progress larboard of GTA 5 moving connected Switch utilizing the game’s leaked root code. While it does look improbable that Nintendo would person factored Grand Theft Auto 6 into the Switch’s first-year success, there’s a clear, beardown narration betwixt steadfast Take-Two and Nintendo that shouldn’t beryllium ignored. When looking astatine the console marketplace arsenic portion of the wide video crippled industry, Nintendo is inactive a immense portion of that nary substance however overmuch of an land they whitethorn seem. The Nintendo Switch was inactive big to an array of generation-defining games including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Metal Gear Solid, Crysis and more. And with Cyberpunk 2077 arriving connected Switch 2 astatine launch, implicit with its existent gen-only Phantom Liberty expansion, we shouldn’t disregard the imaginable for “miracle” ports.

What’s wide is that determination is simply a hellhole of a batch riding connected Grand Theft Auto 6. Many antithetic caput honchos of the video crippled industry, from workplace heads to main analysts, judge that this generation-defining crippled volition beryllium the 1 to interruption the industry’s maturation stagnation. It’s hard to contradict the planetary feverish request and anticipation for a crippled that has efficaciously been successful the works for implicit a decade. There are impossibly precocious expectations connected the teams astatine Rockstar Games to present thing that not lone single-handedly restores the video crippled manufacture backmost to its pre-pandemic growth, but besides presents an wholly caller benignant of video crippled acquisition that volition go the caller benchmark for developers and publishers moving forward. Rockstar lone has 1 changeable to get this close – what’s six much months aft 13 years?

Sab Astley is simply a freelance writer who has written for IGN, Polygon, TotalFilm, Rolling Stone, Radio Times, and Metro UK.