Rockstar announced last year the highly anticipated new installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, GTA 6, which is set to be released in the fall of 2025. However, the announcement raised many questions about the fate of the PC version, as the company confirmed initially releasing the game only on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms, without any mention of plans to release a PC version!
Historically, Rockstar followed a similar approach with GTA 5, where the game was first released on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, then the next-gen version on PS4 and Xbox One in 2014, while PC players had to wait until 2015 to get their copy of the game. Expectations suggest that we might see the same scenario with GTA 6.
Former Rockstar North developer Obbe Vermeij, who recently uncovered the hidden content of GTA 4, joined the ongoing discussion among Grand Theft Auto fans about the release date of the PC version of GTA 6.
GTA 6 Release Date on PC
In response to concerns from a user on the former social media platform X “previously Twitter” about the timing of GTA 6’s release on PC, Obbe Vermeij stated that he fears we may have to wait until 2027, and discussed the possibility of GTA 6 being postponed to 2026, suggesting that there is no competitor on the horizon that could threaten the commercial success of the new Grand Theft Auto game, hence the possibility of postponement might be driven by Rockstar’s desire not to rush the development of a game expected to top game sales for the next few years.
Rockstar is known for focusing on releasing its games first on home gaming platforms (PlayStation and Xbox), aiming to achieve the highest possible sales from the wide audience of these platforms who tend to buy original copies of games, a strategy previously mentioned by Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick.
PC players often resort to pirated copies to get the games, especially with their prices typically reaching $70, which may be one of the reasons prompting developers to delay the release of PC versions of their games, to prevent an impact on sales of the original copies on other platforms.
In addition to pirated copies, PC owners can often access game files through various available windows on the platform that cannot be closed, which may eventually lead to the discovery of some secrets that the developer keeps for the game’s future additional content and leak it to the public.
These reasons, along with many others, may push the developer to delay the release date of GTA 6 to a distant time compared to the home gaming console version, in order to achieve large sales and widespread distribution sufficient to make the multiplayer mode launch successful by all standards.
