What everyone expected but no one wanted to believe until the end has happened: Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed again. This time to November 19, 2026, meaning another whole year of waiting. GTA VI is a behemoth that influences the entire gaming industry, and immediately after this news, a real storm broke out online: including the impact of layoffs, the mood within the studio, and criticism from other publishers. We delve into the chronology of the scandal, because who knows – maybe this isn't the last delay?
Another Delay — Rockstar vs. AI
The delay happened on November 6. According to Take-Two Interactive, which owns Rockstar, it was done to better polish the project: "We apologize for having to postpone the already long wait, but these additional months will allow us to complete the game with the level of quality you expect and deserve."
And overall, this is logical — considering the level of quality Rockstar is aiming for, I can fully understand that they need more time. Creating such graphics and optimizing the game within the technical capabilities of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series is an almost impossible task, and as much time as possible is needed here. If they succeed — and given the developers' reputation, this is believable — it will be a real revolution in the gaming industry, as all previous "GTA" parts were.
In addition, shortly before the delay, Strauss Zelnick — the head of Take-Two — suddenly stated that he does not believe in the imminent reign of artificial intelligence: "AI cannot create a game like GTA. AI is effective for many tasks, but it is not capable of making a masterpiece."
Upon seeing this news for the first time, one might be quite surprised: "Could it be that the most adequate boss of major publishers turned out to be one of the most (if not the most) greedy?". However, if "Rockstars" really don't rely on neural networks as much as others do, then this fully justifies them — manual work is still many times superior to AI in quality. I think many will agree that it's better to wait an extra six months than to relive an experience like Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition at launch.
Rockstar vs. IWGB: Is This the Last Delay?
But is this really the case? And is this the last delay? The release dates were shifted immediately after several dozen employees were fired — and all of them were experienced workers: leading artists, animators, testers, designers, programmers, and producers. Many had worked at Rockstar for over 18 years.
The fired employees are united by the fact that they were all members of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) — with which Rockstar had a conflict: they were all members of the IWGB Game Workers Union Discord channel. The company accused the fired workers of leaking data: "These people were distributing and discussing confidential information on a public forum, which violates company rules. The decision has nothing to do with their right to join a union or participate in its activities."
On the one hand, after a large-scale hacker attack on Rockstar and the leak of information in September 2022, even before the official announcement of GTA VI, it's no wonder that Take-Two and Rockstar are so concerned about preserving their internal secrets, especially when it comes to such a large project. Back then, about 90 gameplay videos from the pre-alpha version of the game leaked online.
On the other hand, the studio bosses openly disregarded people and their rights, simply kicking out the "violators" without any official charges, which led to protests in front of the Rockstar and Take-Two offices. IWGB accused Rockstar of the most egregious act of anti-union activity in the history of the gaming industry. The union claims that this is a targeted "terrorizing" of union activists.
The IWGB leadership retorted Rockstar's statement: "The studio is afraid that hardworking employees will privately discuss defending the right to fairer working conditions and a collective voice." They accused Rockstar of undermining union activity.
IWGB is one of the key unions in the British gaming industry, fighting for workers' rights: against unpaid overtime and discrimination. Considering the fact that it's difficult to avoid this kind of thing when creating games at this studio — it's no wonder that Take-Two and Rockstar's reaction to any interaction of their employees with the union turned out to be exactly like this.
However, according to journalist Jason Schreier, the delay is not related to these layoffs and is more related to financial reports to investors: "The delay is not related to the layoffs last Thursday. Although these layoffs could certainly have long-term consequences for the project and lead to even more missed deadlines in the future."
This "coincidence" greatly affected the morale of developers from Rockstar North: "Those of us who are lucky enough to have stayed are working in fear! In fear when we talk to each other over a cup of tea, in fear that we will be next in line and easily disposed of, in fear of leaving the studio and talking (or even admitting) to our colleagues protesting outside, for fear of reprisals."
All of this will greatly affect the workflow in any case: those who remain will work much slower and invest less of themselves in the process, which will affect the final quality — why try today if you might be on the street tomorrow? It's easy to understand them. Well, those who were fired are difficult to replace — they were experienced people who not only knew their job, but also the entire internal structure of Rockstar. And since they also held leading positions, they could neutralize or strengthen the strengths/weaknesses of their subordinates. Even if the studio bosses manage to quickly find replacements for them — which in itself is not easy — it will take a lot of time before they can reach the previous level of productivity in working on the project. Time that may not be enough again.
Strauss Zelnick's Excuses
In this regard, it's funny to watch messages from Strauss Zelnick, who promised that this delay would be the last: "We wanted to give Rockstar enough time to perfect the game and make it as high quality as possible."
Obviously, managers who don't understand all the intricacies of the creative process and don't care about it have once again put a spoke in the developers' wheels. Well, Zelnick's words are generally difficult to take seriously: this person is far from the world of games even though he holds a leading position in one of the largest game publishers — it's enough to recall his words that in the aforementioned ill-fated re-release of the GTA trilogy "only one bug was found, which was quickly fixed".
In this case, the Take-Two boss's ostentatious disbelief in AI may be nothing more than an attempt to lay a little straw before the GTA VI delay: they say, if we don't rely on AI and prefer to work everything out ourselves, then it's no wonder we need more time. The logic is there.
But Zelnick was already "confident" in the previous dates — first in the fall of 2025, then in the spring of 2026 — which didn't save the game from delays. But he's good at "trolling" competitors: "Games that have received more time for refinement demonstrate how "well-used" that time was. At the same time, competing companies that release projects before they are ready face "failures".
However, delaying the release doesn't always mean that the game will be better developed — more often it simply becomes a victim of publishers and managers, falling into production hell. And when it comes out, its state causes nothing but tears and anger from players — however, I don't think this is the case with "GTA 6".
However, delaying the release of Grand Theft Auto VI too much is unprofitable and even dangerous — immediately after the announcement of the delay, Take-Two Interactive shares fell by 9%: that's how much influence this project has on the corporation! Now this won't have a big impact on them — the stock price will quickly recover, and if they release another trailer for the game, they will soar even higher than they were before. But if you postpone the game once or twice more — the result will be… Exciting.
The Delay Hit Everyone
Other developers and publishers are also not to be envied — absolutely everyone is afraid of competition with GTA VI. Now we are watching a real game of catch-up: different publishers are trying to move the release dates of their games as far as possible from a competitor that cannot be defeated. And Take-Two and Rockstar are constantly on their heels, again and again postponing the release of "GTA" and thus becoming the cause of the appearance of more and more gray hairs in other game developers.
This has even become a subject for jokes online. For example, the game Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra was postponed indefinitely almost immediately after the postponement of Grand Theft Auto VI for exactly the same reasons: "To meet the level of quality that our team, players and fans expect." GTA VI, like a black hole, dragged other projects along with it.
The exception here was the publisher Devolver Digital, which "declared war" on Rockstar and stated that it wants to release its game on the same day as GTA VI — what kind of project it will be is still unknown. Perhaps this is another joke, or perhaps a sophisticated PR stunt. In any case — it sounds fun and unusual.
Players also didn't have it easy: some fans even postpone their own wedding date just so they don't get married at the same time as the release of the long-awaited game and can play it in peace. Brides unfamiliar with the hype around GTA obviously won't like this very much.
Including many "workers" often plan to take vacations for such releases for exactly the same reason — to calmly play the long-awaited game. And delays every time put such players at least in an awkward position at work, and at most become the cause of problems with the authorities. After all, the postponement of GTA VI is not a reason to postpone a vacation already approved for the next working year.
Even the state authorities of Poland reacted to the postponement. Thus, Witold Tumanowicz, a deputy from the KWiN (Confederation of Freedom and Independence) party, stated: "As part of my parliamentary statement, I wanted to inform you of very disturbing news: Rockstar Games has announced that the release of GTA VI has been postponed. This is a huge scandal. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if people took to the streets to protest." It is clear that these are just the words of one person, but if they are spoken by someone who holds such a position, then the hype around the postponement is clearly more serious than it might seem at first.
Analysis
This whole situation has gone beyond the usual framework of the gaming industry. Grand Theft Auto VI is the largest gaming project of recent years in principle, the impact of which extends to the entire gaming industry and far beyond. Rockstar literally influences the destinies of ordinary people! So even the conflict between developers and publishers with trade unions went beyond a simple dispute. Who knows what consequences all this will lead to for the studio — and, most importantly, their games.
At a minimum, another postponement is quite possible — due to the reshuffles within Rockstar, the pace of development has suffered in any case. Strauss Zelnick's statements should not be trusted — he will say anything just to appease investors. This is simply his job. We will not learn the real state of affairs inside the studio from him, and considering the quality they are aiming for and how they are used to working — there may be even more problems than you can expect in the wildest nightmares.
