Looking back at my GTA 6 release date doubts and map predictions from May 2025

In May 2025, after Take-Two's investor meeting and the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, I went through the newest details on Rockstar Games' next game: how solid its May 26, 2026 release date looked, when its production started, and how large its map was shaping up to be. My view then was that a delay to September or October was still possible, and that the map was going to be the biggest Rockstar open world to date.

That May 26, 2026 date was later delayed. At the time, though, the evidence pointed in more than one direction, and the head of Take-Two had said things that might have shifted me over to the side of believing the game was releasing in May.

Why the GTA 6 May 2026 release date didn't fully convince me

The first delay, from 2025 to 2026, was predictable. Rockstar and Take-Two were well over four months into the year without announcing a date, so the writing was on the wall for that one. In the days before I wrote this, there had also been reports that another delay might be imminent. A few things about the new date still struck me as a tad suspicious, and they dented my confidence a little.

For starters, the game still had no pre-orders listed, which seemed weird for a game with a solid release date. On one hand, Rockstar had put an exact date on the game and confirmed the release platforms. On the other, it wasn't willing to accept pre-orders yet. A pre-order would have been almost definitive proof that the new date was real.

You could argue Rockstar was waiting until launch was closer to open pre-orders, or maybe trying to hide that $100 price tag for as long as possible, but I wasn't sure I agreed. It also didn't help that several insiders, including Jason Schreier, said the game needed more time to polish and that Rockstar wasn't 100% sure the delay to May would be enough time to get everything up to its standards.

Strauss Zelnick told IGN the GTA 6 delay was about polish

The other side of the argument came from IGN, which interviewed Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick. According to IGN, back in February it had asked Zelnick how confident he was about hitting the then fall 2025 release window, and he said he felt really good about it. At an earlier Take-Two investor meeting he had reaffirmed the 2025 date, which then changed when the game moved to May 26, 2026.

So in a new interview timed to Take-Two's freshly published financial results, IGN asked what had changed in those few months. Zelnick said that as the game got closer to launch, the need for more polish became clear: "As we got closer to the completion of a title that's seeking perfection, the needs or lack thereof for continued polish became clear." He added that there was an opportunity, with a small amount of incremental time, to make sure Rockstar achieved its creative vision, and that he supported that approach.

He also said he felt really good about how fiscal 2026 looked, and that the most important thing was to support teams in their search for perfection. When IGN asked how confident he was that Rockstar would hit the May 26, 2026 window, Zelnick said: "I think historically when we set a specific date, generally speaking, we've been very good about reaching it." In his defense, when Rockstar has put a specific date on its games, it has typically hit it. Still, I felt he was doing the same song and dance he always does.

My GTA 6 delay prediction: September or October, not 2027

Things could still change. There was a year left in development, which I expected would be mostly polish. Zelnick seemed confident, but I saw the question of whether GTA 6 would be delayed again as still to be determined.

I thought a delay to September or October 2026 was still possible. I didn't think another delay would push the game back to 2027, but I could definitely see Rockstar moving the date from May back to September or possibly October. It's in Rockstar's nature to push its games back three or four times before release. Then again, to Zelnick's point, once Rockstar has a definitive date, it typically doesn't deviate from it.

Take-Two said GTA 6 development began in earnest in 2020

The investor meeting also brought confirmation of when development started. Grand Theft Auto 6 began development in earnest in 2020, following the success of Red Dead Redemption 2, and Take-Two called it the most anticipated entertainment property of all time. That wasn't surprising news to me, though some people might have found it shocking. It confirmed that development didn't start until after Red Dead Redemption 2 came out, so anyone who thought work began right after GTA 5 was wrong.

It did strike me as a bit weird that development didn't start until 2020. You'd think it would have begun right after Red Dead Redemption 2 released in 2018. I felt there might be some missing context. Maybe Zelnick meant full production started in 2020, while pre-production began right after Red Dead Redemption 2, with the next two years spent planning and mapping out everything Rockstar wanted to do.

Another possibility was that Rockstar used those two years to upgrade its engine. The studio uses its own proprietary engine, RAGE, and there were some big upgrades from Red Dead Redemption 2 to GTA 6. My guess was a mix of both: pre-production and engine upgrades first, then firing on all cylinders from 2020. That made the September leak even crazier to think about. It was such an early build, and it already looked amazing only a year into development. The leap from trailer 1 to trailer 2 in such a short time seemed wild to me.

The GTA 6 mapping project: Vice City, Leonida Keys and Port Gellhorn

The GTA 6 mapping project had been running for years. It's an ongoing prediction of the map built from official trailers, promotional material and the leaked in-development build. A new edition had come out shortly before I wrote this, and it gave a good idea of how large the play space was going to be.

Vice City would be the main hub, where most of the main story takes place, but it looked like a small part of an overall map that would seemingly span most of the state of Leonida, and possibly some of a neighboring state to the north. Vice City sits on the coast on the east side. At the southernmost part of the map is another main hub, Leonida Keys, which looked like it would be another very populated, busy section of the game.

In the west is Port Gellhorn, a bit less populated than the major cities but still an important landmass. I didn't think people realized how big Port Gellhorn was probably going to be. The northern parts of the map showed mountain ranges and a large lake. The project wasn't finished, so plenty of open space still connected the major areas. With a map that size, I expected many quiet driving stretches between places, which is accurate to real life, and Rockstar's previous games had plenty of open space too. I thought the blank spaces would get filled in as more was learned, but I'd have been happy with the map exactly as it stood.

Insiders claimed GTA 6 would have far more enterable buildings than GTA 5

That was especially true given what had been reported about interiors. According to several inside reports and leaks, GTA 6's map would feature far more building interiors than any GTA game before, which would greatly increase the playable space. GTA 5 has roughly 449 building interiors, and according to some sources, roughly 40% more of GTA 6's overall buildings would be enterable.

I expected the game to have thousands of buildings across the map, so if the share of enterable buildings ended up at 40% or even higher, you can imagine how many that would be. To me, GTA 6 looked like three entire open world maps smashed into one, put together with the attention to detail and immersion Rockstar is known for. My only hope was that loading times wouldn't also be 40% longer than GTA 5's, but only time would tell.

Rockstar's official website showed deserts, mountains, plains and wetlands

Beyond the insiders and the mapping project, Rockstar's official website had confirmed several biomes through official screenshots and promotional material. Vice City would be the main metropolitan area, and there would definitely be beaches and suburbs. But Rockstar had also shown deserts, mountains, plains and wetlands.

So even if you didn't buy the mapping project's version of the play area, Rockstar itself had shown off so many locations that the map would have to be large to fit them all. It might not be the biggest world in gaming history, but I had no doubt GTA 6 would be the biggest Rockstar open world game to date.