Rich Stanton
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Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has been on the business interview circuit since last week’s financial results, reassuring all those skittish stockholders after the company announced “a narrowing of Rockstar Games’ previously established window of Calendar 2025 to Fall of Calendar 2025 for Grand Theft Auto 6.”
That wasn’t a delay: the game had previously been announced only for “calendar 2025”, and I don’t think even the most Rockstar-pilled conspiracist thought that meant January. But it did nevertheless confirm GTA 6 would be coming later rather than sooner: and let’s not forget, that’s a console release date only. Even 2026 for PC seems optimistic at this point.
So Strauss Zelnick is out there calming some nerves. During an interview with CNBC (spotted by VGC) Zelnick was asked about the decisions around release schedules, and what feeds into knowing when a game is ready.
“There are elements that you can actually measure,” says Zelnick. “For example the number of bugs in a title, and every one of us will make sure that we have as few bugs as possible before we launch.”
“However, in the case of an extraordinary title, for which there are extraordinary expectations, it’s not really about bugs, it’s about creating an experience that no one’s seen before, and Rockstar Games seeks perfection in what they do,” says Strauss, no doubt stroking a large gold-laden goose in his imagination. “Perfection is indeed hard to measure, it really is more subjective than objective.”
This is a horn that Zelnick’s had a honk on before, saying earlier this year that they “are seeking perfection” with GTA 6. But such airy talk is for the birds when there’s money like this on the table: GTA 5 has now sold per Zelnick “approximately” 200 million copies. Fall 2025 may well be GTA 6’s new target, but Rockstar has considerable form with announcing release dates and then delaying. It’s hard to criticise this when the games turn out like they do, but this title is nevertheless the subject of eye-watering levels of investment, is arriving well over a decade after its predecessor, and is going to be possibly the biggest entertainment launch the world has seen to this point. So the CNBC hosts asked how confident Zelnick was in the game’s new launch window.
“Well, there is slippage in the industry and we’re not immune from that, however we narrowed the timing because we are highly confident in that timing,” said Zelnick.
Finally as pertains to GTA 6, Zelnick was asked about what will be new and different about this entry. Zelnick has this particular answer oven-ready.
“Well look, the trailer’s out there, and the trailer broke the internet… so I recommend if you have a question go watch the trailer again, it’s awesome,” says Zelnick. “It actually does tell you what’s new and different.”
There’s lots to pick out of the trailer, for sure, and a few fun tinfoil hat theories (and some debunkings). As for Zelnick’s claim it broke the internet, well, it definitely broke some YouTube records, but sadly even Rockstar cannot compete with the Kpop titans BTS.
So hopefully you are now highly confident in Zelnick being “highly confident” about Grand Theft Auto 6 hitting the new date. There is a fair amount known about the game already, some of which is down to a major leak before the official announcement, but of course one 99% certainty for PC owners: We’re not going to be partying with the console crowd, and who knows what kind of rig is going to be needed to get the best out of this.