GTA 6 release date holds at November 19 despite the leaks
With 83 days to go, Grand Theft Auto VI is keeping its date. Rockstar Games reaffirmed it on August 26, 2026 in its statement about the leaks, and the Extended Look a day later changed nothing in the calendar.
GTA6 LIFE
Grand Theft Auto VI is still launching on Thursday, November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Rockstar Games said so on August 26, 2026, eight days after the first unauthorized gameplay videos and a full map image were picked up by Kotaku, and the Extended Look that followed on August 27 changed neither the date nor the platform list.
The sentence that carries it closes a statement about the leaks: “we hope that everyone will wait a bit longer to experience the game for themselves on November 19”. Earlier in the same message, Rockstar describes a game “(nearly there!)”, the first official word on how far along development is since November 2025. No delay is mentioned.
That date has moved twice in public. Take-Two announced the game “in 2025” on December 4, 2023, then narrowed the window to “Fall of Calendar 2025” on May 16, 2024. On May 2, 2025, Rockstar pushed it to May 26, 2026. On November 6, 2025 it moved again, to November 19, 2026, another 177 days, for “the high level of polish players expect and deserve”.
Two delays announced, 18 months claimed
Strauss Zelnick counts differently. On the Founders podcast on May 17, 2026, the Take-Two chief executive put the game “about 18 months behind the original date”. The two public delays add up to 12 to 14 months, depending on where you place “fall 2025”. The four to six months left over point to an earlier internal target that was never announced, which IGN placed in spring 2025. Rockstar has never addressed the gap.
Nobody at Take-Two has said the November 2025 move was the last one, either. Asked that day by GamesIndustry.biz, Zelnick went as far as “I’m confident in the date, that’s why we set it” and stopped there. He had been blunter to IGN on May 2, 2025: “there’s always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like absolutely, you jinx things.”
Two blanks remain at 83 days out. Rockstar has published no unlock time for November 19, so the only official hour on the calendar is still preloading from November 12, 2026, seven days early. A PC version has not been announced at all: no date, no window.
The date is now written into Take-Two’s own financial documents. It appears in the line-up published with the February 3, 2026 results, in the forecast of $8.0 to $8.2 billion in net bookings for fiscal 2027 issued on May 21, 2026, and in the reiteration of that forecast on August 6, 2026. On August 28, rockstargames.com/VI reads “Coming November 19, 2026” above a pre-order button.
