Grand Theft Auto 6 has a firm hold on the 2026 release schedule, despite not having a confirmed launch date. It’s still assumed it’ll drop in October 2025, and no publisher or developer in the world wants to compete with it. With that being said, it’s believed that many companies are waiting with bated breath for a confirmed date, at which point they’ll mark their calendars.
In a recent interview at GDC, a noted senior consultant at Newzoo made a damning observation. He suggested that a GTA 6 delay could be so impactful that the knock-on effect would write off some companies.
‘What Do You Do?’
In a chat with PC Gamer at GDC in San Francisco, Newzoo’s Ben Foster made a brutally honest claim about the potential impact of a GTA 6 delay:
If you’re a game company who’s holding its breath waiting for GTA 6 to get out, and then it gets delayed by three, four, five, six months, what do you do?
You either have to be able to launch into that big black hole that’s been left open now, or you have to extend your run rate by an additional six months – I’m certain some companies are going to tank as a result of that, right?
Everything we know about GTA 6 suggests it’s still being released in just a few months, most likely in October. Foster’s comments are accurate, given how we’ve already seen some developers adjust their expectations based on the impending release of Grand Theft Auto 6.
If you’re a publisher waiting to give the green light and GTA 6 is delayed, you’ve then got to manage that accordingly and potentially push back your schedule, when companies around you might be relying on launching and bringing in some money to make up for development costs.
Foster was also transparent about GTA 6 not being some magic formula that’ll revitalise the entire industry overnight. He suggested it’ll ‘put eyes back on the games market from investors’ but it won’t be ‘universally uplifting’.
Are you still expecting GTA 6 to be delayed? Let me know in the comments.
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