GTA 6 release set for 19 November 2026 after 13 years and two delays

Thirteen years in the making

Rockstar's next Grand Theft Auto game has taken 13 years to reach players, counting from GTA 5, which came out on 17 September 2013. GTA 5 earned one billion US dollars in three days and has sold more than 200 million copies, placing it among the best-selling games of all time. According to parent company Take-Two, no entertainment product had succeeded faster. Instead of a new GTA, Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption 2 in October 2018, and co-founder Dan Houser left the company in early February 2020. The GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition followed on 11 November 2021 with so many bugs and graphics problems that Rockstar apologised a few days later. On 4 February 2022 the studio confirmed that development of the next GTA was in full swing, though it gave no further details at the time.

Leak, early trailer and new details

Roughly 90 clips showing early versions of the main characters and the game world surfaced months after a hacking attack. A British teenager from the circle around the hacker group Lapsus$ was identified as the suspect. Rockstar says the leak and its consequences cost it about five million US dollars. The first trailer also leaked, so Rockstar released it early on 5 December 2023, and within 24 hours it had been viewed more than 93 million times on YouTube, a record for non-music videos. It showed Leonida, a fictional Florida, and introduced Lucia as the first playable female lead. The trailer closed with the words "Coming 2025", and a second trailer later reached 475 million views in 24 hours across all platforms.

First trailer (YouTube)93

Second trailer (all platforms)475

First trailer (YouTube)

93 million views

Second trailer (all platforms)

475 million views

Data from the article text

Delays to 19 November 2026

Rockstar first planned the launch for May 2025, then moved it to May 2026 and finally to 19 November 2026. The studio wanted to give the game the polish fans would expect. A dispute over dismissals at the publisher also marked the wait. The "Coming 2025" promise made in the first trailer was therefore not kept. Players can now expect the game on 19 November 2026, after the studio's second postponement.

Pre-orders, showcase and pre-download

Pre-orders opened in June 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S only, and the game ships without a disc at launch. The Standard edition costs 79.99 euros and the Ultimate edition 99.99 euros. A physical Standard edition box contains a double-sided poster and a code on a slip of paper, which has sparked discussion among fans of physical media. Fans with a Netflix subscription got a gameplay showcase of just under half an hour, shown on Netflix first and on YouTube six hours later. Between 18 and 25 August 2026, a hacker calling themselves "CyberLeek" published unauthorised GTA 6 clips, a smaller version of the much larger 2022 attack. Rockstar published pre-download details on 3 November 2026, and the download went live on 10 November on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. According to Sony and Microsoft, GTA 6 is the most pre-ordered game in the history of their stores.

Standard edition79.99

Ultimate edition99.99

Standard edition

79.99 EUR

Ultimate edition

99.99 EUR

Data from the article text