Thirteen years between GTA V and GTA 6

Grand Theft Auto V came out on September 17, 2013. Grand Theft Auto VI comes out on November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. That is thirteen years and two months between main games, by far the longest wait in the series. The gap before that, from GTA IV in April 2008 to GTA V, was about five and a half years.

The short answer to why it took so long: GTA V never stopped selling, GTA Online turned it into a game people played for a decade, Rockstar made Red Dead Redemption 2 in between, and GTA 6 itself slipped twice. Here's how those thirteen years break down, with three weeks to go and pre-loading set to open on November 10.

How long has it been since GTA 5 came out?

Counting from launch day to launch day, it's 13 years, 2 months and 2 days. In that time GTA V was released on three console generations and PC, and its online mode got more updates than most games get in their whole lives.

Why GTA V never went away

The biggest reason for the long wait is that GTA V kept earning. Take-Two said the game passed $800 million in first-day sell-through on September 18, 2013, the day after launch. Two days later it reported more than $1 billion in worldwide retail sales in the first three days.

The sales never really stopped. In its report for the quarter that ended June 30, 2026, Take-Two said GTA V had sold in over 230 million units, up from nearly 230 million the quarter before. The whole Grand Theft Auto series is at nearly 475 million units. A game from 2013 was still selling every quarter as GTA 6 approached.

Part of that came from the re-releases. Each new console generation got a new version: PS4 and Xbox One in 2014, PC in 2015, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in March 2022, and a free upgrade bringing those improvements to PC in March 2025. Lots of people bought the game more than once. If you're thinking of going back to it before November, our post on whether to replay GTA V before GTA 6 covers what still holds up.

How GTA Online changed the series

GTA Online launched on October 1, 2013, two weeks after the main game, and it had a rough start with connection problems and freezes. Rockstar kept updating it anyway. The Heists update landed in March 2015, and years of businesses, new areas and heists followed.

That changed what GTA is. The series used to be a big single-player release every few years. For the last decade it has also been a live online game, one that kept millions of people playing in Los Santos long after they finished the story. According to Circana's Mat Piscatella, GTA V was still the third-most-played game on PlayStation in the US in both 2024 and 2025.

It also changed the business. A game that keeps earning every quarter takes away the pressure to rush out the next one. That's a big part of why the wait could stretch this long.

What did Rockstar release between GTA V and GTA 6?

One major new game: Red Dead Redemption 2, in October 2018. It was a huge, slow, detailed western, and it showed how far Rockstar's ambitions had grown. Take-Two now puts it at over 87 million units sold in. We think it's the best warm-up for GTA 6.

The rest was re-releases. GTA: The Trilogy, The Definitive Edition brought GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas to modern platforms in November 2021, with a rough launch. The original Red Dead Redemption came to PS4 and Switch in 2023 and to PC in October 2024.

Why GTA 6 was delayed twice

Rockstar first confirmed the next Grand Theft Auto in February 2022. The first trailer arrived in December 2023 with a 2025 release window. It broke YouTube records, with 93 million views on its first day. The second trailer followed on May 6, 2025, and drew a record 475 million views across platforms in its first 24 hours.

In May 2025 the game moved to May 26, 2026. Then, on November 6, 2025, alongside Take-Two's quarterly results, Rockstar moved it again to November 19, 2026. Its statement said the extra months would let the team finish the game "with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve." We've written before about why game delays are usually good news, and this one has held. Pre-orders opened on June 25, 2026, at $79.99 for the Standard Edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition. In August, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke of a "high degree of confidence" in the November 19 date.

Since then, the marketing has picked up. "Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look" premiered on Netflix on August 27, and a launch trailer followed on October 15.

How games changed in thirteen years

When GTA V came out, the PS4 and Xbox One hadn't launched yet. Since then there have been two new console generations, the Switch and Switch 2, the Steam Deck and a wave of PC handhelds. Subscriptions, digital pre-loads and live-service games reshaped how people buy and play. Even how GTA 6 ships reflects that: Rockstar says physical copies will contain a download code rather than the game on a disc.

Open worlds changed too. A lot of the games that defined the genre for today's players came out in the gap: The Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Elden Ring. Players now have strong opinions about map icons, side quests and filler. GTA 6 arrives in a much more crowded and demanding genre than GTA V did.

The players changed most

Thirteen years is a long time in anyone's life. Someone who was 15 when GTA V came out is 28 now. People who played it at university are now fitting games around jobs and kids. And some of the most excited GTA 6 players weren't old enough to play GTA V at launch.

That shows up in how people talk about it. For some, GTA 6 is a chance to feel the way they did in 2013. For others, it's their first new Grand Theft Auto on release day. Both groups will be playing the same game with very different expectations, and very different amounts of free time.

What the wait means for November 19

Long waits raise expectations. When a game has been anticipated for over a decade, it's tempting to expect it to be everything at once. It won't be, because no game is.

A few things are worth doing before launch:

• Check your storage. Pre-loading opens on November 10 for digital pre-orders, and Rockstar says the download needs up to 212 GB, so clear space early. Our pre-load guide has the details.
• Finish or park what you're playing. Our guide to clearing your backlog before GTA 6 helps you decide what to wrap up and what to set aside.
• Play at your own pace. There'll be people racing to 100% in the first week. You don't have to be one of them.

The best way to approach November 19 might be to treat it like any other game you're excited about: notice what you enjoy and write it down. Thirteen years from now you'll want to remember what it was like. In Perthro you can log GTA 6 as you play and keep notes along the way, and our guide to keeping a game journal is a good place to start.

Sources

• Take-Two press release: GTA V first-day sell-through over $800 million (SEC filing, September 18, 2013)
• Gematsu: GTA V sales surpass $1 billion in first three days
• Game Developer: GTA V surpasses 230 million sales months before GTA VI
• VGChartz: GTA series near 475 million, Red Dead Redemption 2 over 87 million
• Gematsu: Grand Theft Auto VI delayed to November 19, 2026
• Rockstar Games pre-order announcement via Game Developer
• PCWorld: Grand Theft Auto VI's extended look is a Netflix exclusive
• Wikipedia: Grand Theft Auto V
• Wikipedia: Grand Theft Auto Online
• Wikipedia: Grand Theft Auto VI
• Wikipedia: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, The Definitive Edition
• Wikipedia: Red Dead Redemption