GTA 6 announcement confirms game will be unplayable for millions at launch, and possibly beyond

Millions of fans will not be playing GTA VI at launch and this isn’t related to those who game on last-gen consoles.

When the next entry in Rockstar Games’ massive Grand Theft Auto series arrives, it will likely be the talk of social media for many months. In fact, it won’t be surprising if we’re all still talking about GTA VI years after release, as we often do right now with GTA V, a game originally released in 2013.

Unfortunately, those who haven’t upgraded to the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S and are still playing on last-gen systems, won’t be able to play GTA VI.

What about PC gamers, surely those with capable PCs can look forward to the launch of the game too, right? Well, sadly, PC gamers can’t either, unless they also own a PlayStation 5 and/or an Xbox Series X/S.

Bearing in mind that Rockstar Games officially revealed GTA VI in December 2023. When it was announced, the trailer confirmed that GTA VI is coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Yet, as reported by PC Gamer, we’re well over a year since its reveal and Rockstar Games still hasn’t given us a PC release date for GTA VI.

Assuming GTA VI is still released this year, it will be arriving on consoles in about 10 months from now. That being said, Rockstar Games is not scared of delaying games, after all, it always wants to launch the best product possible and that’s how it should be.

Unless ungodly work is being done behind the scenes on the PC port of GTA VI, it’s probably safe to assume at this point, it won’t be released until 2026 (if we’re lucky).

Typically, PC gamers are used to waiting longer than console gamers for Rockstar Games titles. For example, PC gamers had to wait 19 months longer from when GTA V first launched on consoles in September 2013 for its PC launch in April 2015.

There was an unlucky 13-month gap between the console and PC launch of Red Dead Redemption 2, while the original game had a whopping 14-year gap between 2010 and 2024 (though we’re sure that will never happen again).

Not including the original top-down entries of the 90s, the only mainline game in the series to launch in the same year on PC and consoles was GTA IV in 2008.

Grand Theft Auto VI is currently scheduled to be released late this year on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. We’ll have our fingers crossed that PC gamers aren’t waiting too much longer.