13 March 2023 , 19:00
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A new set of rumours about GTA 6 have hit the scene, and while fans are desperate for release date news, the rumour has one huge caveat.
There is no game people are as desperate to hear more about than GTA 6 given we've not had a new entry in the series since 2013's GTA 5. The game has had released across three console generations and will be celebrating its tenth anniversary later this year on September 17, 2023. So suffice to say, fans are getting tired of waiting on Rockstar for new information. But the latest rumour suggests we won't have to wait much longer as the GTA 6 release date could be as early as 2024.
GTA leaker @TezFunz2 posted on GTAForums (via Reddit ) this past week saying that the “aimed-always-changing-not-set-in-stone deadline is holiday 2024”. This echoes previous rumours about a 2024 release; back in November 2022 Microsoft stated in a response to the UK’s CMA that the GA 6 release date "is expected" in 2024.
Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson also suggests that this rumour is in line with his own sources, saying that Rockstar has been aiming for a 2024 release as far back as 2021. According to Henderson's sources, part of what's taking GTA 6 so long is that it's being developed for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S exclusively.
@TezFunz2 also says the game could slide back into early 2025, whereas Henderson speculates that a GTA 6 release date of holiday 2025 is more plausible should such a delay happen. However, @TezFunz2 says it's possible that Rockstar could cut “more portions of the game to package into DLCs to release later on” and that it would be more “sustainable for management than delaying further” into late 2025 or even 2026.
Inside quietest room in the world where no one can stay inside for over an hour
In terms of official word, all that has come from Rockstar was a tweet in February 2022 announcing that “active development for the next entry in the series is underway”. After a security breach that resulted in videos of GTA 6 gameplay surfacing online,. Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, in an earnings call said that while the leak was unfortunate, it believes that it had no impact on development of GTA 6 (via GamesRadar+ ).
Grand Theft Content
While @TezFunz2’s comments about content being snatched from the game and being repurposed for DLC doesn’t seem to have a source, it’s a sad realisation that it sounds believable. Content being cut and released later on isn’t a new practice; we saw Capcom do it twice in 2012 with Street Fighter X Tekken’s extra characters, and the ending of Asura’s Wrath. 10 years on it’s still not an uncommon industry practice.
But for a game that’s been presumably in the works in some form it’s sad to hear that GTA 6 may be an unfinished product. Even as someone who was hesitant about Red Dead Redemption 2 after GTA 5 became so heavily focused on GTA Online, Rockstar delivered on all fronts on that game.
This is just another nail in the coffin of my excitement for GTA 6; especially when you consider that two of the main people behind GTA’s success – Dan Houser and Leslie Benzies – left the studio in the years since GTA 5 (with Benzies going on to sue the company not long afterwards). I guess we’ll find out for sure in 2024.