GTA 6 release date ‘could slip’ to 2026, it’s claimed

videogameschronicle.com:

GTA 6’s release date could slip to 2026, it’s claimed.

According to Kotaku, sources with knowledge of the game’s production believe that although the internal goal at Rockstar is to release in “early 2025,” a slip to 2026 is possible.

Moving the release to 2026 is reportedly currently on the table as a “fallback plan,” if production goes awry.

Rockstar released the first official trailer for the game in December, which racked up over 90 million views in just 24 hours.

As well as a 2025 release date for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, it confirmed that the game will partly take place in Vice City – a fictional Miami – and star a pair of protagonists, one of whom, in a first for the series, is a women.

Earlier this year, Rockstar informed staff of plans to end its hybrid working policy for productivity and security reasons.

The move follows a number of high-profile Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks, and Rockstar head of publishing Jenn Kolbe said the company found there are “tangible benefits” from in-person work, Bloomberg reported.

In recent years, Rockstar has reportedly made progress in mitigating its once infamous crunch culture, which saw staff expected to work overtime at nights and weekends to keep projects on schedule.

“The workers in the IWGB Game Workers Union at Rockstar are pushing for transparency over pay and promotions, a healthy and inclusive workplace culture, and work life balance centred around what each worker needs,” said IWGB game workers chair Austin Kelmore.

“It is unacceptable that Rockstar leadership have gone back on their word time and time again and have ignored the workers’ requests for basic working conditions.

“Workers across the industry are done with letting executives make reckless and harmful decisions and the Rockstar workers are showing us the start of what’s to come if they’re continually ignored. There’s no better time than now to join our union and push for this to be the healthy and sustainable games industry we know it can be.”