Take-Two Breaks Its Silence On GTA 6 PC Delay

The "GTA 6" trailer broke the internet in 2023, but since then, Rockstar has largely remained silent while rumors about the "GTA 6" release window have flourished. Now, thanks to Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, we finally have a clearer idea of what to expect. Unfortunately, the parent company behind Rockstar Games has definitively confirmed one of the biggest rumors: "GTA 6" won't be coming to PC right away. After mentioning that "Civilization 7" will be released simultaneously on PC and console, Zelnick told IGN, "With regard to others in our lineup, we don't always go across all platforms simultaneously. Historically, Rockstar has started with some platforms and then historically moved to other platforms." IGN noted that Zelnick was most definitely referring to "GTA 6" here. Worse, he did not say how long fans can expect to wait between the release of "GTA 6" on Xbox and PlayStation and its arrival on PC.

On a more positive note, Zelnick seems confident that Rockstar is on track to release the game sometime in 2025, though he didn't get any more specific about a potential release date. Zelnick also believes that "GTA 6" will be a console seller, despite some extremely volatile conditions in the gaming market. This "GTA 6" update isn't everything gamers want, but after such a prolonged silence, it's still a welcome bit of communication from the company behind the game. Here's what we've learned.

Fans have been waiting over a decade for "GTA 6," so there's absolutely no doubt that the game's release is going to be one of the biggest events in entertainment history. Despite that, there are some larger forces that could put a damper on the "GTA 6" debut. Game prices could skyrocket across the industry in the near future, particularly if  new tariffs on foreign goods are implemented by the United States. Console prices could also see a sharp increase, right as companies are hoping "GTA 6" will move more consoles.

Speaking with IGN, Zelnick explained that he's still optimistic that the enthusiasm for "GTA 6" and other upcoming games will help drive sales, even if prices rise throughout 2025. "I don't think tariffs are going to be our friend," Zelnick said, "but I think there will be a meaningful uptick in console sales in [2025] because of the release schedule ... So I'm not concerned about that." In other words, it sounds like Rockstar is expecting "GTA 6" to be a big holiday item.

Zelnick, who's previously made concerning comments about the potentially high retail price of "GTA 6," didn't specify if new tariffs will immediately affect the price of the game. He said that instead of worrying about tariffs, he's thinking about how the expanding base of PC gamers is going to affect the industry. Of course, that makes Rockstar's approach with the PC release of "GTA 6" even more confusing.

Zelnick told IGN that he expects around 40% of the total sales of "GTA 6" to come from PC players. That's left many gamers wondering why Rockstar isn't prioritizing a simultaneous console/PC release. Fans have been thinking about the PC release issue even before Zelnick confirmed their worst suspicions, and we may have already received an answer. In October 2024, former "GTA" developer Obbe Vermeij posted on X, "I would think doing a simultaneous release is also risky. The pc version tends to have a bunch of technical issues because of all the different configurations (memory, processor, gfx card). These issues may give the game a reputation for being buggy." He argued that a buggy PC release could taint the entire game's reputation and imagined that Rockstar was splitting up the releases to focus on perfecting the game on every platform. 

This concern makes total sense, especially when one remembers the backlash to other broken PC ports of the past, such as "The Last of Us Part 1" and "Batman: Arkham Knight." That line of reasoning led Vermeij to a very unfortunate prediction: That the PC version of "GTA 6" might not arrive until 2027.

Vermeij isn't a current Rockstar developer, so he's only taking an educated guess. However, it's worth noting that these kinds of gaps aren't unheard of for Rockstar. "Red Dead Redemption 2" arrived on PC a year after consoles, while "GTA 5" took a solid 19 months. Still, even without confirmation of a final release date or price, the update from Zelnick is still somewhat reassuring. The game is on track for release (for some platforms) in 2025, and everyone at Rockstar is working to make sure that it lives up to the hype.