There has been a lot of talk about GTA 6 releasing in early 2025 but potentially slipping to 2026. The GTA community on social media has been ablaze with conflict, denial but also some fair discussion. A new report from Bloomberg has come out to share details on what is going on behind the closed doors at Rockstar Games.
This whole situation kicked off last week when Kotaku had heard from sources close to Rockstar Games that the current release target for GTA VI is early 2025. However, progress is apparently stalling leading to a possible release in late 2025. A 2026 delay is seen as an emergency option.
The slowdown to the finish line has led to Rockstar Games requesting all employees work from the office full time instead of remote. Developers at the company are worried about the changes coming in April. There could be quite some adverse effects on the game’s development. The news coming out of Kotaku actually knocked down Take-Two Interactive’s share price by about 6%.
Insider Gaming’s Mike Straw offered a contrasting look to Kotaku’s story having spoken to sources. Many fans were relived to hear these as they fear a 2026 release. It has been over 10 years since GTA V after all.
Kotaku then followed their report up with an update. More sources had been in contact with them to say whilst early 2025 was the target at sometime, it is no longer the goal.
The last chapter in this online guessing game
This brings us to Bloomberg’s report. Reliable reporter Jason Schreier says “video games are always behind schedule and risk getting delayed at any time”. He calls out that this is especially true when they’re titles reaching for the stars such as GTA VI.
Of course development of the next Grand Theft Auto is falling behind. It always is.
Jason Schreier
Mr Schreier says about how “even if the production was somehow going perfectly, it would be impossible for anyone to state definitively that the game will be ready in 21 months.” As we know, game development is a difficult beast and can change at moments notice.
He also talked about how the stock market reacted to Kotaku’s report and felt it was overblown; theorising investors were simply “overreacting to nothing of significance”. Much like others have said, a delay to 2026 is not impossible. Games, in particular this one, are exceptionally hard to make.
The reporter brings up an older conversation he had with an actual developer on GTA VI at Rockstar. He asked the employee what the situation was at the time to which the response was “chaos”. In contrast, developers he spoke to this week shrugged as their reply to Kotaku’s news. A key line from Jason is “Of course development of the next Grand Theft Auto is falling behind. It always is.”
Response from Kotaku
The author of the article on Kotaku, Zack Zwiezen, replied to a Tweet discussing his writeup in aim of clarifying what he said. According to Zwiezen, the sources who shared the GTA VI info with him, are the same ones who delivered accurate information on Rockstar Games in the past. This will have been one of the big reasons why the story was run.
Another Tweet from the writer made it clear that he did not say the game was delayed until 2026 but rather it is a possibility and that Jason did not debunk his report. Zach also said “nailing down anything at Rockstar is hard these days.”
At this point, no one really knows the full extent of what is happening within Rockstar Games. Fans are optimistic but accounts from some developers paint a less pretty picture.
There was also another recent report by Aftermath. Inside it, two Rockstar Games employees shared worries and uncertainty with the outlet. Jason’s report states a similar situation. Rockstar VP of publishing Jennifer Kolbe told developers access to the company’s network outside of the office is “the single largest data security exposure we have”. Due to this, all employees will be unable to use the systems outside of the physical offices. This is one of the reasons why developers are worried about the future.
Jason echoes a thought others have also had. This new work policy coming into effect on April 15th might actually make things worse. In terms of working conditions and timeline for the game to come out. For reasons why, we’d highly recommend reading Jason’s full post here. Though at this very moment Jason claims nothing internally has changed drastically. We’ll soon find out as the policy change date is fast approaching.
On one hand, it is really interesting getting a little bit of insight into what is going on with GTA VI right now. On the other, we don’t quite have an in-depth investigative report giving fans what they want or don’t want to hear.
There’s a cycle that happens. Lots of speculation until Rockstar deliver something publicly in the form of a trailer. That keeps fans occupied for a few weeks. Then some bad actors will start making things up or misconstruing what others say. You can’t blame the fans though. It is the most anticipated game of all time.
These events occur when the assets and info from Rockstar has become dry. Fans are desperate for Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 2 but it will come when they’re ready. Just like with the first trailer. There’s no rush from Rockstar.
Source: Bloomberg. To keep up to date with every GTA 6 news update, make sure to check back to RockstarINTEL and sign up to our newsletter for a weekly round-up of all things Rockstar Games.
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