Why is GTA 6 taking so long?

What the heck is taking GTA 6 so long? It's a question that fans around the world have been asking for the better part of a decade.

As I'm sure you know, GTA 5 was released a full nine years ago. In that time we've had multiple re-releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. We have also had very few updates on where GTA 6 actually is. No wonder fans have started taking matters into their own hands.

While fans continue to wonder what exactly is going on with the GTA 6 release date, CEO of Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, has explained why the game is taking so long.

The long and short of it? Rockstar Games is taking its time because it knows this is perhaps the most anticipated video game of all time - and Take-Two is keen to avoid a flop.

"We definitely have very high quality expectations and demands, and that's reflected in the fact that we're performing across the board," Zelnick said during a quarterly talk with investors in November 2022. "This company is a hit factory. We haven't had a disappointing release in as long as I can remember, and that's honestly the most important thing."

Speaking about the lower projected sales for the current fiscal year, he added: "If you have to choose, I'd much rather have the situation we're in, which is [that] we've had some delays and we've had to revise down guidance. I'll choose that any day over taking some flops. That's really the key in this business.

"We've had issues - we’ve been around long enough to remember them - where in the past we've had delays in titles, and it was ultimately always worth waiting for, because when we got to the other side, the results were delivered and the small amount of time delay didn't ultimately matter in the context of the results we were able to deliver. I'm hopeful that'll be the case here as well."

As we've already seen from the substantial GTA 6 leaks earlier this year, development is clearly well underway. But for now, it seems, we'll have to keep being patient.