GTA 6 petrifies rival publishers. They make their decisions depending on Rockstar Games' moves
According to Jason Schreier, companies in our industry will shape next year's release calendar of major games so that their releases are separated by as much time as possible from the GTA 6 launch.
GTA 6 is definitely the most important game of 2025. Therefore, the information published in the new Bloomberg article should not surprise anyone. Jason Schreier reports that a large part of next year's release calendar will be influenced by the release date of Grand Theft Auto 6, as no one in the industry wants to directly compete with this game.
The precise release date of the latest installment of Rockstar Games' popular series is currently unknown. The launch is expected to be around October, as it is planned for the fall, and many people are referring to the debut dates of other installments in the series.
- Other publishers want to avoid competing directly with GTA 6, so they are trying to schedule the release of their biggest games as far away from the release date of this title as possible.
- The issue is that it's not certain at all whether Rockstar Games will meet the autumn deadline, despite several assurances regarding this release date. We must always take into account that the game may be delayed, for instance, until the end of next year or the beginning of 2026. That's why other publishers will delay as long as they can before deciding on the release dates of their games.
The Game Awards is scheduled for Thursday. Many people are hoping that a new Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer will be shown at the event – perhaps with an exact release date. If it turns out that it has been postponed to 2026, other publishers will have the freedom to plan their game's releases for the end of next year. Without this, the only game that will not have to fear confrontation with GTA 6 is probably the next installment of Call of Duty (Black Ops 6 broke all series records).
It's worth noting that even Take-Two Interactive itself, the owner of Rockstar Games, wants to avoid a clash with the next Rockstar Games release. The CEO of the company, Strauss Zelnick, recently stated that the releases of Borderlands 4 and GTA 6 will be spaced apart by a significant amount of time to avoid a situation where the publisher's two major titles would compete in terms of sales and marketing. We already know that Borderlands 4 will appear at The Game Awards 2024. Knowing the release date of this game will give us an indication of when Grand Theft Auto 6 might be released, even if Rockstar Games doesn't announce any date.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X. It is almost certain that the game will also be released for PC, but that will happen much later.
