[cap-drop]G[/cap-drop]TA 6 is not even out yet and the highly anticipated title is already receiving awards. The hotly anticipated open world crime simulator won the ‘most anticipated game’ award from the 2024 TGAs and is looking forward to a Fall 2025 release, putting all other games in its headlights. Is there a single game out there that would feel confident releasing the same week as GTA 6? We don’t think so, but it may not be totally disastrous for the smaller game.
After all, past pairings have achieved success despite one dominating the other with its hype. For example, 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn still went on to sell a whopping 24 million units as of 2023 despite launching just days from The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. But Grand Theft Auto 6 is different beast, and we’ll explain why. We’ll also look at what games are potentially set to release within GTA 6’s release window and if studios are indeed steering clear of the juggernaut.
It’s no surprise to those familiar with the Grand Theft Auto brand just how impactful its GTA 6’s launch and very presence is to other game studios. We now have some tangible insight confirming just how careful other game publishers are with regards to the meteor that is Rockstar’s GTA 6. Contrasting the usual gaming leaks, Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier is in the thick of it with his connections and sources; he’s all but confirmed the quiet part out loud with regards to GTA 6’s seismic affect on other game releases.
Schreier notes that “anticipation is so high” for GTA 6 that “some competing game publishers are waiting as long as possible to commit to their release dates for the fall”. Rockstar doesn’t have a history sticking to their initial release dates, after all, so there’s a non-zero chance that GTA 6 may get delayed to 2026. Sure, Take Two confirmed a release window of Fall 2025, but with no concrete date yet set, Rockstar still has some precedent to delay the game until it’s in a state they deem adequate.
Rockstar is a studio plagued by delayed releases. GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas were all hit by smaller month-long delays. Meanwhile, GTA 4 notoriously got set back 6 months after its initial release date, while its best-selling follow-up, GTA 5, was delayed from Spring 2013 to Fall 2013. Every GTA since 3 has been delayed, and all are attributed to the same reason: development standards. There’s little reason to think GTA 6 won’t follow the same fate and be pushed into 2026.
In fact, former Rockstar lead, Obbe Vermeij, gives us some unsurprising insight into the studio’s patience and push for perfectionism. Vermeij says that, “[GTA 6] will sell for 10+ years and there is no competition to worry about. They are not going to release the game until they’re 100% happy with it. No matter what it said in the trailer.” Rockstar’s perfect track record delaying GTA games along with their consistent philosophy on perfectionism has other studios rightfully playing chicken with them. Sure, the first couple months of 2025 are stacked with solid release dates, but Fall and Winter are currently utterly barren as far as releases go (which is not unusual, but it’s worth pointing out)
But let’s say Rockstar does manage to make history and hit their initial release window in 2025; what are the other big games potentially sharing the Fall 2025 window that could even stand a chance against GTA 6? A majority of hotly anticipated games are launching in the first quarter of 2025, but some heavy hitters like Death Stranding 2 and Doom: The Dark Ages have unconfirmed 2025 dates. It’s possible these two games in particular are waiting for Rockstar to make another more definitive release announcement before committing to their specific launch dates.
That said, Doom: The Dark Ages has little in common with GTA 6’s open world crime shenanigans, and Death Stranding 2 is a different animal altogether. But as we’ve seen in the past, even when games are genres apart, they still tend to lack visibility when timed poorly next to a larger game. 2017’s Prey, for instance, came after Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn and sold very poorly, partly for that reason. Then again, in Death Stranding 2’s case, its unique status as a Hideo Kojima brainchild means Kojima fans will be there day 1 no matter what.
Still, no amount of hype or anticipation from other games can match that of GTA 6. I mean, the reveal trailer broke all kinds of viewership records, eclipsing GTA 5’s reveal by a significant margin. I thought 115 million views for GTA 5’s reveal trailer was ridiculous a decade ago, but those numbers got dwarfed by its successor. The reveal trailer for GTA 6 sits at well over 200 million views, 11 million likes, and 950 thousand comments, doubling the numbers of GTA 5’s inaugural trailer. Such a positive like ratio speaks volumes as to fans’ anticipation of the newest GTA title. Sales speaks volumes just as loudly. And it’s hard to beat GTA 5’s jaw dropping sales numbers.
As of 2024, GTA 5 has sold over 205 million units, making it the 2nd best-selling video game of all time behind Minecraft. If we take the sales of GTA 6’s predecessor in tandem with GTA 6’s trailer reception, it’s clear that Rockstar’s latest game could very well come close to taking Minecraft’s crown as the best-selling game of all time. The trajectory is set for GTA 6 to outperform every game in every tangible category – which is reason enough for other publishers to make way and let the tide cool before releasing their own big hits.
But has there been a precedent for publishers avoiding another big game’s release date? Well, remember when CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3 received an earlier release date than Fallout 4? And let’s not forget Sony spreading out Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War months apart from each other in 2018.
There are many examples of smaller games outright delaying their title to avoid the bigger juggernaut from stepping on their toes too. Alone in the Dark was delayed to avoid competing with Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2. Clearly there’s a lot of precedent for game studios to strategically avoid competitive release dates.
When we factor just how record-breaking GTA 6 already is, there’s no denying its impact on the wider industry’s release schedule. We may not see many solid release dates until Rockstar unveils their own concrete date for GTA 6. The industry is on pins and needles awaiting Rockstar’s every move – sure, this is a known quantity at this point, but it becomes that much more apparent when examining the studio’s history and how publishers reacted in the past to their premiere series.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.