Rockstar Games’s Grand Theft Auto VI, which was due to release on 26 May next year, has been delayed again – this time to the end of 2026. It has now been nearly two years since the game was announced, and more than 12 years since the release of Grand Theft Auto V.
“Grand Theft Auto VI will now release on Thursday, November 19, 2026,” reads Rockstar Games’s statement on X. “We are sorry for adding additional time to what we realize has been a long wait, but these extra months will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve.”
The long-anticipated game stars a romantically entwined pair of criminals named Jason and Lucia in Rockstar’s sun-bleached version of Miami, Vice City, and the wider Florida-like state of Leonida. It has been development at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, with assistance from the company’s other studios in New York and worldwide, since 2018. Its original release window was late 2025.
It has been hoped that GTA VI would revive an ailing games industry, which has seen a contraction after a Covid-era boom. According to game publisher Take-Two’s most recent financial reports, its predecessor Grand Theft Auto V has generated $8.6bn since its 2013 release. Rockstar’s last game, the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2, was released in 2018 and reached $725m in sales over its opening weekend.
Players, meanwhile, have had a very long time to look forward to Rockstar’s latest: even by the standards of the video games industry, where six-year development periods for blockbuster games are not unusual, the more than 12-year wait for Grand Theft Auto VI has been extensive.
