Report: No one is setting Fall release dates for games in fear of GTA 6

Despite the industry's solidarity with the collective Survive till '25 sentiment, GTA 6 is striking fear into the hearts of publishers everywhere. No one wants to go up against Grand Theft Auto.

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GTA 6 is expected to be so big that it will help save the video games industry. At least, that's the popular belief going around...and there's a good chance the game will boost the market across the board, whether it be full game sales across digital and retail channels, or gaming hardware sales across consoles and PCs.

Recent history has shown the market is full of unknowns and unprecedented occurrences--your best-selling Palworlds and Helldivers 2 in 2024, for instance, or Baldur's Gate 3's cultural explosion throughout 2023 remain key examples. When it launches in 2025, there's a chance GTA 6 could even beat GTA 5's thunderous success, as if magnified by the current trends of high consumer appetites.

While a rising tide raises all boats, but that doesn't mean everyone is friendly. Competitors and rivals are set to benefit from any market uplift from GTA 6 insofar as total spending is up, but that also comes with fierce competition, and in this case, publishers will be competing directly with a AAA game rather than the F2P live service games that typically rule the video games industry.

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No one wants to take the chance in going up against GTA 6. It may be seen as a fool's errand to have your game launch anywhere near the most anticipated video game in the last decade.

According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, video game companies are wary in plotting out Fall 2025 release dates for their games.

"Anticipation is so high that some competing game publishers are waiting as long as possible to commit to their release dates for the fall, according to people familiar with their deliberations who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. The publishers want to see whether GTA 6 will make its deadline or slip into 2026, these people say, and they're determined to keep their own games far, far away," Schreier writes in the report.

Neither Take-Two Interactive nor Rockstar Games have announced any kind of delay for GTA 6, and as far as we know, the game is still set to launch in Fall 2025 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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