Everyone knew there was a good chance GTA 6 wouldn’t make its May release date and now Rockstar Games has confirmed it won’t be out until the end of 2026.

One day GTA 6 will be released, and you’ll be able to play the most anticipated video game of all time, but that day is no longer going to be May 26, 2026.

The May date was also a delay, but now Rockstar Games has confirmed that the new release date is November 19, 2026. Although, of course, there’s no guarantee it will make that date either, since GTA 5 is still raking in money for both Rockstar and parent company Take-Two.

This time there was even less explanation than usual for the delay, with a short tweet that said simply: ‘We are sorry for adding additional time to what we realise 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.’

While the previous delay had been widely expected, given the long gap from one trailer to another, there’d been no prominent rumours of any recent troubles. In fact, there’s been very little gossip at all over the last few months, so this all comes as a big surprise.

What is the new release date of GTA 6?

The news initially broke via Take-Two’s latest fiscal report, which quietly announced the new November 19, 2026 date just before the tweet was posted.

As before, and as is common for Rockstar Games, it will initially only be released for consoles, in this case PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. There will be a PC version, but it’s not been confirmed yet and won’t now happen until at least 2027.

Since the news was part of Take-Two’s financial report there was an immediate, negative effect on the publisher’s stock price, which is down over 9% at time of writing and still falling.

It will probably recover but if there’s anything that’s going to make Rockstar stick to its latest release date it’s Take-Two insisting they don’t tank their stock price again.

You can imagine exactly how well fans have taken the news, with the primary emotions being surprise and anger – and a need to express both via the medium of memes.

‘I just smashed my TV in front of 30 guests at my party because of these constant delays. My wife just took our crying kids and said they’re all spending the week at a hotel. This delay has ruined my life and my expectations. I can’t handle this anymore. Goodbye Rockstar. I am no longer a fan,’ said PrimitiveAK on X – he’s almost certainly joking, but everyone seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

We’re not sure if it’s a new thing or not but several comments made reference to the chances of the second coming of Christ happening before GTA 6, while someone called FERAS complained ‘Damn it! I became a father, and I might even become a grandfather, and your game still isn’t out yet!’

Several company accounts also got involved, with indie publisher Devolver Digital asking if Rockstar wanted a new publisher, and Domino’s pizza suggesting that they could help with delivering the game.

Nevertheless, a fair amount of fans were accepting, and even welcoming, of the delay. ‘I speak for everyone when we say take your good time, we want a finished game and game of the century so you can take an additional 10 years if you need to,’ said Woody.

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