GTA 6 is delayed, but it’s nothing new: Rockstar has been repeating the pattern for two decades

GTA 6 is delayed, and it's just one more Rockstar tradition.

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In reality, delays are almost part of the company’s DNA. When a new Rockstar game is announced, we all know that the initial release date is rarely the final one. It’s almost a ritual: they promise, excite, and when the time comes, they ask for more time. And although it bothers many, it’s usually worth it.

The first major sign of this “tradition” dates back to GTA III. Its release, scheduled for September 2001, was postponed after the 9/11 attacks. Since then, no major project from the studio has escaped a delay.

Delays become a hallmark of the house

With Vice City and San Andreas, the changes in dates were minor, but marked the beginning of a constant dynamic: giving the team more time to polish the details. With GTA IV, things got much more serious. Announced for 2006, it finally arrived almost two years later, in 2008, because the leap to Xbox 360 and PS3 was not exactly easy.

Years later, GTA V also had its own “strategic move“. It was going to be released in the spring of 2013 and finally arrived in September. The result was so colossal that no one remembers it as a mistake. The same happened with Red Dead Redemption 2: announced for 2017, it finally saw the light in 2018, and with a technical level that justified every day of waiting.

That’s why, when Rockstar announced that GTA 6 was moving from May to November 2026, few people in the industry were really surprised. They’ve always done it, and they’ll probably keep doing it. Now the game is scheduled for release in November 2026, and who knows if this will be the final date, we believe that there are still new chapters to be closed here.

The studio has been working under the same philosophy for over twenty years: “if we’re going to take our time, let’s do it right“. And judging by the results of their previous releases, no one can say that it doesn’t work for them.