The Rockstar Mag journalist points to a development milestone and a release after 2024. Rockstar has confirmed none of it.
Photo: Rockstar Games
Sources inverse.com · booska-p.com
An announcement "at the end of the year" and a game "not before the end of 2024": that is the forecast journalist Chris Klippel posted on Twitter on 11 March 2022, relayed on 15 March by Inverse and Booska-P. He cites no source. Rockstar has said nothing since its 4 February confirmation.
Klippel, who runs the site Rockstar Mag and covers games for Presse-Citron, writes that "an important step" in development has just been reached and that "things should speed up" inside Rockstar. According to Inverse, he thinks a real announcement is possible at the end of the year, without giving a date, and does not see the game arriving before late 2024. Inverse notes the timing could line up with The Game Awards, while pointing out that Rockstar has never needed an event to get people talking.
The reasoning is mostly arithmetic. Booska-P observes that for both GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, roughly two years separated the official announcement from the release: an announcement in late 2022 would naturally lead to 2024. Inverse adds that Stephen Totilo, Tom Henderson and analyst Michael Pachter had already floated nearby windows. The outlet stresses a useful point: this message mostly says the game is not coming in 2022 or 2023, nothing more.
The only official text remains the Newswire paragraph quoted by Inverse: development of the next Grand Theft Auto is "well underway", with no title, setting or platform. Everything else, this forecast included, is informed opinion.
The year-end announcement did not come: the first trailer dates from December 2023, and the game did not ship in 2024. It slipped to May 2026, then was set for 19 November 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with preload on 12 November, PEGI 18, €79.99 standard and €99.99 Ultimate. The Goodtime State collector costs €399.99 without the game, GTA VI: The Album is out the same day, and no PC version has been announced. The dates are gathered on the release page.
Klippel was right on the floor, since the game did not ship before the end of 2024, and wrong on the announcement. The lesson holds for every forecast of the period: the cautious ones, the "not before" kind, check out better than those promising a date.
Sources inverse.com · booska-p.com
By Solange Rocheval · VI Countdown newsroom, OKALAM Studio