Grand Theft Auto VI, after being delayed twice, is now closing in on its November 19 release. Rockstar, the official publisher of GTA 6, first announced the delay in May 2025 until May 2026.
Then, a few months later, another announcement stated that it was delayed until November 2026, which left the GTA 6 community disappointed. But it was not the gaming community alone that was left surprised; even the boss of Take-Two, the company that owns Rockstar Games, was in disbelief.
Ahead of the November launch, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier published a detailed report on how Rockstar Games spent years developing the game, which is dubbed the game of the decade. By the time Rockstar was closing in on the launch window of 2025, the company's head of development and co-studio head Rob Nelson, along with some other developers, realised they needed more time.
"You feel a huge pressure and obligation to deliver the highest-quality game on the most aggressive time scale that you can," Nelson told in a recent interview with Bloomberg. Providing context on how things were communicated, some developers told Rockstar head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe to ring Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to ask for more time, which he eventually granted.
Then a few months later in 2025, Kolbe dialled Zelnick again to ask for another delay, this time pushing GTA VI to November 2026. Kolbe recalled the Take-Two CEO's reaction at the time, saying, "I think he said, 'You're kidding.
Please tell me you're kidding.'" She added, "But once we talked through why, he got it. And I think we are really lucky that he is as reasonable as he is, because a lot of people would say, 'You'd just better figure out how to ship it.'"
While Zelnick described the decision as a "wise investment in time" and resources to give developers more time and delay a game's launch in order for it to "reach the level of perfection it has the ability to reach," GTA VI, after thirteen long years, is finally set to launch on November 19, 2026.