GTA 6 release date: 2021 would be a terrible year for PS5 and Xbox Series X launch

Publisher Take-Two Interactive has made it pretty clear that GTA 6 will not be released during 2021.

Hopes of a surprise reveal at E3 2021 can continue; for now, however, expectations have taken a blow.

And perhaps it’s for the best that the next Grand Theft Auto game will not be hitting shelves in 2021.

There are several reasons why this was always a long shot, and there are also a few which would have made this year a rubbish time to launch such a big next-gen title.

Let’s start with the obvious issue that makes launching GTA 6 in 2021 so unlikely; the enduring success of GTA 5 Online.

Launched back in 2013, Grand Theft Auto V and its multiplayer experience continue to prove one of the most popular video games in existence.

Not only does it continue to top sales charts, but it also has another port being planned for later this year.

A native version of GTA 5, complete with new enhancements and features, will be released on PS5 and Xbox Series X in the coming months.

Developers Rockstar Game have announced the final launch date to be November 11, 2021.

And there seems very little doubt that this will be another sales hit for Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two.

The launch of this new product highlights how unlikely 2021 was for a GTA 6 release date and how it will make 2022 a hard sell too.

But there are other reasons why launching GTA 6 in 2021 would have been a bad thing for gamers.

GTA 6 is set to be a massive game, and while we don’t know much about it yet, it seems likely to skip PS4 and Xbox One consoles.

Doing so will make it possible for the development team to build a truly next-gen Grand Theft Auto experience, complete with a revamped multiplayer mode.

But if Take-Two had decided to bin GTA 5 PS5 and Xbox Series X support this year to focus on the sequel, things could have panned out differently.

There would have been a much higher chance that a Grand Theft Auto 6 game coming out in 2021 would have been cross-gen.

So while it’s incredibly frustrating that we have been stuck waiting for so many years, and this situation is going to continue, it might have been for the best for GTA 6 to skip 2021.

Rockstar Games hasn’t said much about what enhancements are being planned for GTA 5 but they did release this statement regarding the port this week, telling fans:

“The expanded and enhanced versions of Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online are arriving on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S with new features and more, on November 11th, 2021.

“As an added bonus — this summer’s updates to GTA Online will include special benefits for players to take advantage of in these expanded and enhanced versions when they drop. Plus, in honor of the upcoming 20th anniversary of the genre-defining Grand Theft Auto III, we’ll have even more fun surprises to share — including some specifically for GTA Online players.

“While the standalone version of GTA Online will be available to players on both platforms, this new standalone version of GTA Online will be available for free exclusively to PlayStation 5 players during the first three months.

“And PlayStation Plus members on PlayStation 4, make sure to claim your GTA$1,000,000 by visiting the PlayStation Store at the start of each month — every month until the launch of GTA Online on PlayStation 5.”