GTA 6 First Release Date: What Was Announced First?

• Current status: Historical record — first target was "2025"; current confirmed date is November 19, 2026.
• Last verified: July 2, 2026.
• Official sources checked: Rockstar Newswire archive, Trailer 1 end card, Take-Two statements.
• What is confirmed: every official window and date listed below, with announcement dates.
• What is not confirmed yet: nothing here is pending — this is settled history; only future dates (PC, Trailer 3) remain open.

GTA 6's first release information arrived with its first trailer. On December 4, 2023, Rockstar released Trailer 1 — the record-breaking debut that introduced Lucia and the Vice City setting — and ended it with a simple card: "Coming 2025."

That was the entire first release commitment: a year, no month, no day. Notably, Rockstar had publicly confirmed the game's existence much earlier — a February 2022 statement that development was "well underway" — but that announcement carried no date at all. "2025" was the first time Rockstar put any timing on GTA 6.

Through 2024, Take-Two's earnings language narrowed the window to fall 2025 without ever naming a day — still officially inside the original "2025" promise.

The first actual day attached to GTA 6 was announced on May 2, 2025 — and it was itself a delay. Rockstar moved the game out of the "2025" window and gave it its first specific date: May 26, 2026. Four days later, Trailer 2 arrived and reset the hype cycle.

So a quirk of GTA 6 history worth getting right: the game never had a specific release date inside 2025. The first date it ever had was already in 2026. When people ask "what was the first GTA 6 release date," the accurate two-part answer is:

• First announced window: 2025 (December 4, 2023)
• First specific date: May 26, 2026 (announced May 2, 2025)

That May date was later moved once more — the full comparison is in the original vs new release date guide.

The complete genealogy, oldest first:

Four targets, two real delays, one final date. Measured from the first announced window (2025) to the current date, GTA 6 slipped roughly one year — significant, but far from gaming's worst, and each move came with more concrete detail than the last: window → date → date with pre-orders and a pre-load schedule.

For the event-by-event view — trailers, delays, pre-orders and what's next — see the full announcement timeline.

GTA 6's first release target was "2025," announced December 4, 2023; its first real date was May 26, 2026; its final date is November 19, 2026. If you're evaluating a "GTA 6 release history" post, check it against the four-row table above — anything extra was never official. Count down the real date with the launch countdown.

Sources checked

• GTA 6 Trailer 1 (December 4, 2023 — confirms the "Coming 2025" card)
• Rockstar Newswire, May 2, 2025 (confirms first concrete date, May 26, 2026)
• Rockstar Newswire, November 6, 2025 (confirms current date, November 19, 2026)
• Take-Two earnings materials 2024–2026 (confirm the fall-2025 narrowing and current guidance)

Update log — 2026-07-02: Published. Full date genealogy cross-checked against Rockstar's announcement history.