Sony Interactive Entertainment has added Grand Theft Auto VI to its official editorial list of the most anticipated games coming to PlayStation 5 this year, because, of course, the biggest game of the generation, the same game it spent weeks trying to sell as a first-party exclusive, is on a most-anticipated list.
Except, the reason we're bringing this up now is because, a few months ago, it wasn't.
Back in January, that same PlayStation page ran without the next Grand Theft Auto on it. The most anticipated game on the planet, absent from Sony's own list of anticipated games, while smaller third-party titles made the cut, is a glaring omission that was partly the reason why a lot of people didn't really buy the November 19 release date until recently. Now, where leaving it off the same list meant doom, putting it on it must mean it's Sony's way of saying that it's confident that the release date will stick, especially as talks of another potential delay are growing louder following months of silence.
With that said, this is a living page that Sony updates whenever it feels like it, and games get added and removed as release windows firm up. GTA 6 getting slotted in is not a announcement, a promise, or a leak. It is a marketing team editing a blog post. It doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it's not nothing either. Sony is betting an enormous amount on this game, from stock planning to marketing. A company does not prominently feature a game on its own store front if it has real internal reason to think it is slipping out of its promised release date.
At best, the update is a mild reassurance, a small sign that the people with a financial stake in this launch are expecting the countdown to end come November.
Interestingly, a former Rockstar animator, Mike York, recently said he "would not be shocked at all" if the game slipped again, suggesting that if November arrives and the final mission still is not right, Rockstar could push it another six months. So on one side you have an ex-developer floating a fresh delay in the same interview where he said that GTA 6 is nearly complete, and on the other you have Sony quietly adding the game to its 2026 list.
Those two things point in opposite directions, but neither carries as much weight as Take-Two Interactive reaffirming the November 19 release date repeatedly, most recently in its own earnings guidance, a far more serious commitment than a marketing page. Pre-orders are and have been live since June, with retailers and console manufacturers reshaping its stock planning and their entire release line-up for the second half of the year around GTA 6. Nintendo is the only big video game company brave enough to take GTA 6 head on and it's only because they're catering to two different markets.
Could GTA 6 still slip? Technically yes, any game can, and Rockstar has delayed this one twice already. Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V both saw their release dates slip even after pre-orders went live. When viewed from that perspective, this PlayStation update doesn't confirm anything, but it does quietly stack on the side of the launch actually happening, which is the exact opposite of the delay chatter is selling.
The soonest we'll find out more about GTA 6 is on August 7 when TTWO CEO Strauss Zelnick tells investors about the game's pre-orders numbers, among other things.
