GTA 6 was never going to launch in 2025, analyst reports

Shortly after Rockstar officially pushed GTA 6’s launch to May 2026, new reports suggest that the delay wasn’t exactly a surprise behind the scenes. According to journalist and reputed analyst Jason Schreier, developers at Rockstar hadn’t seriously expected a Fall 2025 release for months - citing overwhelming workloads, tight timelines, and a shift in management’s stance toward avoiding a brutal crunch.

Schreier posted on Bluesky that "nobody I’ve talked to at Rockstar has believed Fall 2025 was a real window for a very long time now,". He further added that the move to 2026 has felt inevitable internally for quite a while. To be fair, this does line up with what many fans suspected, especially given GTA 6 has been in development for nearly a decade.

Of course, the new context has sparked an interesting discussion online, to say the least. Some users are surprised by what they see as an unusually "mature" decision by Take-Two to delay the game in favor of employee health, given the publisher’s earlier reputation for pushing studios hard. Others pointed out that the delay timing might have been chosen to avoid triggering investor panic too early, letting the company manage share value around key earnings calls.

We also saw lighthearted criticism of the new May 26 date, with some fans wondering why Rockstar didn’t aim for a "6/26/26" launch for style points. But most of the sentiment is pretty supportive - especially from players who remember the crunch-heavy days of Red Dead Redemption 2’s final stretch.

As of now, the 2026 release window for GTA 6 seems quite firm. Whether that helps avoid the same late-stage pressure Rockstar is known for still remains to be seen - but at least, for now, the company is trying to do it differently.