Grand Theft Auto VI Is Now Coming May 26, 2026 | Hacker News Reader

Grand Theft Auto VI Is Now Coming May 26, 2026

rockstargames.com

All other companies can breath now and start announcing the release dates for their games this year. No one wanted to compete with GTA6.

There is some speculation indicating the base version will cost >= 80$, this could give some room for other game studios to distance themselves in terms of price

So 2028 for the PC version?

An optimist I see.

Good. Glad they're not taking the "fix it in post" approach that seemingly everyone besides Nintendo and Rockstar do.

I finished GTA 3 on the PS2. I tried playing the later ones, but I always gave up, it was just more and more of the same. It also just started to take itself more and more seriously which wasn't much fun.

GTA:SA (PS2) is also a good game, with a decent story, and also allows you to just enjoy the spectacle without having to engage in violent behaviour.

One of my favourite things to do after a long day was to jump in a Rustler and fly it into the sunset whilst listening to the game's country music.

GTA IV also has its quirks, with some of the best car physics to play with, where it took real skill to drive it properly, and pedestrian reactions felt more human and realistic.

GTA5 was pretty, but that was it. Situations would escalate from out nowhere. Car physics was laughable. Pedestrian animations were muted or canned.

Think this pretty much sums it's up.

That’s gonna be a hard 13 months of crunch.

This might not be the case for once: https://80.lv/articles/gta-6-was-delayed-to-avoid-brutal-cru...

June 26 2026 would've made more sense

Or February 26th 2028, which would be 26/26/26. People might be upset at the wait, though.

I hate to admit it took me a second to figure this one out.

Summer Game Fest is on June 7. I wonder if we will have a lot releases closer to each other in Q3+Q4

13 years of development since the last release. Hope the last mile is not excruciating bug fixes.

Nah; we'll find out they reset development four times or something as scope expanded and hardware became more powerful; and so it's nothing but bugs and still rushed to the deadline. To me this screams scope creep, development hell, and constant redoing of existing work; and good luck not turning into design-by-committee when that happens.

(Edit: As the comment below points out, this happened to Windows Vista. There are plenty more examples though - Metroid Prime 4 was even announced by Nintendo, before being completely scrapped and rebuilt for another 6 years, finally coming out this year.)

That was the story of Windows Vista.

And Cyberpunk 2077

Duke Nukem Forever!

Well it's certain like going to be 3 bug fix years after 10 dev years...

But making prototypes and throwing them away is expected. It's not like white knuckling 13 year old designs is a smart idea either.

The reality is almost certainly that GTA Online took a lot of the focus for many years.

Add Fallout 76 to the list..

Wasn’t it just a couple years ago now where they were in early dev stages which leaked thanks to some kid hacking their systems via slack or something?

Will they still try to cram gta online down your throat like with 5?

Will it even have single player?

Surely they will have PvAI single player by then!

This would have some impact on hardware sales, particularly graphics-related chips

Why? It’s not being released on PC at launch.

WHAT

Launch platforms are PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X.

The PC version of 5 was over a year later.

GTA 4 was closer to eight months.

PC launch should be about 1 year after console launch.

I wish consoles would just die already.

I wish consoles were like the Steam Deck: computers running a common OS that just so happen to be used for gaming.

Thanks, I didn’t know that, but it will still affect console sales, and therefore the chip fab manufacturing load and the sales of the chips in the console.

That’s why a console manufacturer pays Rockstar for an exclusive.

I'm not in game dev, and I don't play games much anymore, so forgive my ignorance, but why?

Aren't they still on the x86/64 ISA?

Cynical answer: Because they've found with GTA V and other games that this works quite well to get people to buy it multiple times. First for the current console, then for PC, then for next-gen console if you get lucky.

Also while they are technically similar, it's still separate optimizing/QA work, so staggering release makes sense vs waiting until the work is done for all platforms. And maybe it makes the rollout for the online part easier if the easier-to-analyze/-hack PC versions come later.

This might be the last game they ever make. I'm shocked there's not more of an effort to make an open-source world sim. It's also a shame that given that they will milk this for a decade at minimum, that none of the developers are involved in any kind of profit sharing.

What do you imagine an open source world sim to be in this context beyond a "game engine"?

All the higher level systems and art and story that make GTA what it is would not apply to other games, really. At least not a generic open source way.

> This might be the last game they ever make.

why?

> I'm shocked there's not more of an effort to make an open-source world sim.

There's a shit load of open source open world games. But how is this related to GTA 6.

> It's also a shame that given that they will milk this for a decade at minimum

How can you milk something you haven't released yet. They've just been burning money (billions, if you believe the rumors) for a decade now.

> This might be the last game they ever make.

Well, I’m still holding out for Space Station Silicon Valley 2

Still playing GTA IV. Hope they'll take more time for GTA VI.

Now we're going to see an absolute torrent of release date announcements from all the other game publishers that have been holding back to avoid the blast zone.

NPC's better be using AI (ran locally)

NPCs better not be using AI, because every implementation I've ever seen of "AI NPCs" is absolutely terrible and immersion-breaking.

Maybe, but if someone has the resources to do it right, that's Rockstar. GTA is a perfect game to use AI and I really think it could be one of the reasons to delay it. I guess they can patch things later but they might want a foundation in the game.

I just hope it can be made local, but I'm afraid they will use this as excuse to force playing online

Will they selfcensor?

Unfortunately I think it's inevitable.

Self-censor what?

You should look at the definitive edition of the trilogy they recently released to know the answer.

GTA6 taking this long cracks me up, feels like they just keep moving the finish line - you think all the waiting actually makes the game better, or just build up way too much hype to ever match?

There have been so many high profile AAA flops lately. They can’t afford to release something bad. I think it’s crazy that everyone just assumes GTA6 will be a good game (aka, GOTY)

Delaying for a year is either fixing major bugs, or they’re scrambling to overhaul something.

Maybe it was too "woke" and with the changing political winds that was considered too risky. So now they have to remove all the rainbows and meaningful female characters

I don't think there's any way this game can live up to the hype. So much time, a rumored $2 billion budget, and a series with the premise of committing offensive actions that pissed off conservative moms in the 90s but now pisses off the liberal activists that run the western gaming industry.

Or maybe it's just too big to fail, even if it's not good.

> liberal activists that run the western gaming industry

wut?

y'know, liberal activists: people who don't make female characters walking uteri and breasts on legs by default.

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