Explainer: GTA 6's new release date and why it matters to the global games industry

All we have is a tentative date, yet for the games industry, it says so much.

The latest art, showcasing Lucia and Jason, the game’s two main playable characters. Source Rockstar.

It was almost audible; the global, collective sigh of relief released by the video game industry after Rockstar, the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, announced a release date for their next game, Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6).

After plenty of fear, trepidation and guesswork from the industry, Rockstar moved its launch window of Q4 2025 to a more precise launch date of 26 May 2026.

Will this date move? Possibly. It's not like release dates in modern gaming are set in stone. But by confirming this date, Rockstar cemented two crucial points: It won't release GTA 6 this year, and it's aiming to dominate the northern hemisphere summer holidays window with its game for 2026.

So why does this one game matter? And why is Grand Theft Auto so world-changing in the first place? Let's get into it.

Hold up, what even is Grand Theft Auto?

Grand Theft Auto is an open-world sandbox game focused on crime. Despite the name, it's not the series' sixth entry. There have been plenty of spin-off titles, most notably Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The last game, GTA V, was released in 2013.

The games are notorious for their violence and adult themes. They also tend to glorify carnage, chaos and crime sprees. Surely it goes without saying: These are not kids' games.

But what they lack in subtlety, they make up for in humour and pointed social commentary. The games dip well into satire, branching into issues in politics, finance and tech, with exaggerated in-game counterparts of real companies, circumstances and personalities.

One mission in GTA V has Michael — one of the main characters — pose as a developer to infiltrate and plant a bomb on a new device being pioneered by a social media tech company called LifeInvader. Sound familiar?

"We have put one billion people's private data in the public domain, and we have milked every penny we could in the process," LifeInvader CEO Jay Norris proudly says to roaring applause at a Steve Jobs-style launch event, right before he meets an untimely end. One that was planned so other characters in the game could short the company's stock.

Here's a clip of the mission, fair warning: it's both not safe for work and features graphic violence. But it gives you a good idea what GTA is all about.

While set in the same world, GTA 6 promises to be that little bit more realistic and mature. The game is also introducing its first playable woman character this time around too.

Here's the latest trailer if you haven't seen it.

The GTA games are also some of the most immersive and dense titles in gaming. The world-building and detail that goes into a Grand Theft Auto title often surpasses many other games. For instance, GTA V and GTA Online feature an in-game radio system that has 26 radio stations featuring over 400 songs — meshed together with audio performances from announcers. And that's just background noise!

While many players will be looking forward to the base game of GTA 6, a significant pool of the player base will instead be keen on the evolution of GTA Online. With the creation of GTA Online — tied to GTA 5 — Rockstar has created a sticky online multiplayer adjunct to their best-selling game. This spin on the main game sees players create their own character and work together to plan and complete heists — or just muck around with guns, cars and carnage online.

While most games experience an initial spike in play that wanes over time, GTA Online has maintained a significant player base for GTA V over the past 10 years. Alongside titles like Call of Duty and Counter-Strike, it remains one of the most-played games of the decade.

Why is its release date so significant for the games industry?

It's significant because, generally speaking, nobody in the games industry wants to compete with it for attention.

GTA V sold around 210 million copies since launch making it the second-best selling game of all time, behind Minecraft. It hit $1 billion in sales in just three days after launch. The hype hasn't waned over time either. GTA 6's reveal trailer in 2024 garnered a massive 230 million views within a month.

"Hype is the life force of big titles and if your hype is overshadowed by another game's hype, you will die," says Australian video game marketing expert Amy Potter-Jarman, who previously worked as Twitch's APAC Marketing Director and is now managing her own firm.

"If I was a AAA release looking for my release window on console, I'd definitely be wanting to avoid GTA's entire window at all costs because it would be an enormous competition for attention which I would be unlikely to win."

Though indie developers in Australia are less concerned. Infinite Lives polled a few across the industry, and the launch of GTA 6 hasn't factored into their plans.

While based in Vice City — GTA’s equivalent of Miami — there will be other areas to explore in game. Source: Rockstar.

Joel Gibson, who is launching strategy game Fall of an Empire later this year, said that while he would be making a note of the release date, he isn't too concerned about competing.

"I'm not saying there wouldn't be an overlap, it's definitely something to consider, but since it's [Fall of an Empire] in the strategy, simulation genre it's more insulated as part of that niche," he says.

"Since it's only for PC while GTA will release initially on PlayStation and Xbox with a gap of a few months before it drops on PC, similar to the strategy Rockstar used for GTA 5, there's another barrier to the release."

Potter-Jarman, however, says that one aspect that will be affected is press attention on newer games, which can be a factor in their launch success.

"Journalists are tasked with clicks and in the media world indie clicks are never going to win versus GTA. Interest for reading about or watching GTA-related content will be incredibly high, sucking the air out of literally everything else — including TV and movies," she says.

"It's [GTA 6] practically a household name title. There may also be some impact on content creator time if your game is looking to land with variety-type creators, as they are likely to sink a chunk of time into GTA on release as there will be a ton of audience excitement to capitalise on."

What are some of the other implications?

Character art like this used to feature as loading screens, but with modern consoles it’s not clear that will be the case again. Source: Rockstar

There are a few other moving parts to this as well.

GTA 6 has been pinned as the one title that could push the needle in terms of selling more advanced consoles such as the PS5 Pro, which was released last November. There were expectations that its release in 2025 could provide a sugar hit for Sony's new console. That's now not happening, so forecasts from Sony's console sales for this year may be taking a dive.

It's broadly rumoured – but not confirmed – that there will be another round of consoles for both Xbox and Sony. Both of their latest consoles came out in 2020, and six years is the typical cycle for new hardware. Whether any plans here align with GTA 6 will be interesting to see.

As Gibson points out, Activision would be "jumping for joy right now" at this news, as it means the new GTA won't clash with their annual Call of Duty release, which typically falls around late October or early November.

There's also persistent discussion that GTA 6 will attempt to raise the ceiling of the price of games, possibly as high as $150 AUD ($100 USD). The argument is, the game has enough hype and selling power that it could set this price point as the norm for the rest of the industry. We'll now have to wait another year to find out — unless another game developer is brave enough to give it a crack.

And finally, on a much lighter note, the content for Game of The Year also got that bit more interesting. Many had this year’s games written off due to GTA 6’s imminent launch.

So they just gave a release date, but it's not set in stone?

Far from it. In fact, release dates tend to shift a lot in gaming.

Perhaps one of the last notable examples was Assassin's Creed Shadows. It was originally slated for 15 November 2024, then got shoved to 14 February 2025. A month out from release it moved to 20 March of the same year.

The main reason for these moves is typically quality assurance. As games get bigger and more intricate, they get harder to test. Situations like what we saw with Cyberpunk 2077, where the game launched with a myriad of embarrassing and busted bugs, have left a scar on the AAA games industry.

While plenty of titles still launch with extensive day one fixes, they endeavour to be as bug-free as possible at launch, even if that means delaying at the last minute to buy more time.

What do you think about that latest GTA game? Are you excited for it? Could you care less? Are you worried it will bump or derail another game series or franchise? Let me know in the comments.