It would have been more surprising if GTA 6 wasn’t delayed. Rockstar Games has built a reputation over the last two decades for consistently missing release windows across nearly all its franchises.

Just hours ago, the news dropped that millions of players had been dreading: GTA VI will no longer launch in 2024 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. After months of silence, and with fans hoping Take-Two Interactive’s upcoming shareholders meeting would finally bring some answers, Rockstar stepped forward and confirmed that it needs a little more time to deliver a game worthy of the series. It’s a blow, but one many had been bracing for.

The lack of promotional material had already raised red flags from miles away, and Rockstar has never exactly been known for keeping deadlines – just look at Red Dead Redemption 2. As our colleagues at 3DJ Latam reminded us, the studio has a long-running history of delaying its major titles, and GTA 6 is simply the latest entry in that tradition. Rockstar demands excellence from its projects, especially its flagship titles. That said, not every delay in their catalog was due to development hurdles – some were for very different reasons. The case of GTA III is a good example.

When GTA III Was Delayed Because of 9/11

The first title in the beloved PS2 and Xbox trilogy was originally set to launch on October 2, 2001 – less than a month after the September 11 attacks that rocked New York, the very city that inspired Liberty City. The tragic event hit close to home for Rockstar, whose offices were just blocks from Ground Zero. The game’s release was pushed back to October 23. It wasn’t just the atmosphere that made work difficult – the developers also made some changes to the game’s content to be more sensitive to the events.

“It’s 1% different. We only removed one mission that referenced terrorists and changed a few other aesthetic details (car textures, a few pediatrician lines, radio dialogue, etc.),” the studio explained in a statement marking GTA III’s tenth anniversary, as reported by VidaExtra. The most visible change was the game’s cover, which was revised to remove imagery of explosions – a redesign that ultimately shaped the visual identity of the franchise moving forward.

Bully, The Warriors, Red Dead Redemption…

That delay marked the beginning of what would become a long-standing Rockstar tradition. The Warriors, an action-adventure adaptation of the cult film, was delayed from 2004 to 2005 so the team could prioritize GTA: San Andreas, which itself was delayed by a week – from October 19 to October 26, 2004. Bully missed its original 2005 target entirely and arrived a year later.

Then came Max Payne 3, which endured one of Rockstar’s most notorious delays. Originally announced for a Christmas 2009 release, the game was pushed back multiple times before finally launching on May 15, 2012 – nearly two and a half years late. Red Dead Redemption suffered a five-month delay and ultimately released on May 18, 2010. As it stands, Table Tennis might be the only Rockstar game to ever escape this curse.

GTA IV, GTA V… and Now VI

As far as the flagship franchise goes, fans have grown used to delays. Both GTA IV and GTA V – and now GTA VI – launched months after their original promised dates. GTA IV was initially slated for October 2007 but slipped to April 29, 2008. Grand Theft Auto V was delayed from its planned spring release to September 17, 2013. And then there’s Red Dead Redemption 2, originally pegged for fall 2017 but pushed back twice before finally releasing on October 26, 2018. And let’s not even get started on how much longer PC players have had to wait for their versions…

Source: 3djuegos