We’re Gonna Have to Wait Another Year for GTA VI

One day.
Photo: Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

There hasn’t been a lot to look forward to this year, unless you count two Josh O’Connor movies at Cannes and set photos from Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, so you’ll have to forgive the wave of disappointment when it was announced on May 2 that Rockstar Games’ highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI would be delayed until 2026. Per a newswire on the Rockstar Games site, the publisher wrote, “We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.” By the time the new GTA comes out, it will have been 13 years since GTA V — as long as it’s been since, say, the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones or the birth of North West.

Despite Rockstar giving a hard date of May 26, 2026, fans are skeptical as to whether the publisher can make good on that promise. “When have they ever followed a release date,” one user pointed out on the publisher’s Instagram. At this point, the lengthy wait times between games are inherent to their appeal (and frustration). “I brought my toddler son with me to buy GTA IV at the local Best Buy and got a snarky comment from the cashier about making sure I didn’t play it until nap-time. We just had a family celebration dinner for him landing his first ‘career’ job,” wrote a user on r/GTA. At this point, it’s almost more fun to think about the games as abstract time markers — not unlike getting a new pope — than regularly expected events. Still, if Rockstar wants to make us wait another year, the least it can do is put out a new trailer.