It is an open secret, and also a self-evident fact, that most publishers of big console games are terrified of Grand Theft Auto 6 and will do anything to avoid going up against it in the release schedule. A new GTA game is such a colossal and rare event that it will suck up the majority of the audience’s money — and, perhaps more importantly, available playtime, because these are such huge, all-consuming games. Players just won’t buy anything else.
That’s what multiple publishers told The Game Business in March last year, when Grand Theft Auto 6 was still expected to launch at some undefined point in 2025. They said they would delay (or move up) their games to avoid it, with the “safe zone” considered to be three to four weeks before or after GTA 6’s release date. It wasn’t just new releases that were affected; publishers said they would consider moving updates to live-service games, too.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson was one of the few to go on the record about the issue, albeit in the vaguest terms. Referring to the possibility of a delay to Battlefield 6, he said there were “some things happening in the year that may cause us to think differently about our launch timing.” In the end, GTA 6 was delayed into 2026 — first May, then November. EA was able to release Battlefield 6 without worry in October, and the high-stakes franchise relaunch cleaned up.
Having dodged the GTA bullet last year — or, in at least one instance, having delayed their games right back into the bullet’s path — publishers will be experiencing deja vu in 2026 as they contemplate their end-of-year schedules. GTA 6 still looms large and presents a major scheduling headache. But this time, things are a little different.
Firstly, we have a date. In 2025, Rockstar Games’ rival publishers had nothing more accurate to go on than “Fall” — typically the industry’s busiest release season. Before GTA 6’s delay was announced, Rockstar’s stablemate 2K Games scheduled Borderlands 4 for September, and Sony bravely put a stake in Oct. 2 for Ghost of Yōtei. Nobody went any later until after Rockstar had moved out of the way.
This year, publishers know the exact date to avoid: Nov. 19. This is good news for them in more ways than one. First: It’s a known quantity and can be planned around. Second: It’s late, about as late in the year as any major game release will go.
One of the anonymous publishers who spoke to The Game Business last year explained that the nightmare scenario was a late October or early November release for GTA 6, putting it squarely in the middle of the prime season. That would force those seeking to give it enough room either into late summer or late November, in the teeth of the Black Friday sales. By picking Nov. 17, Rockstar Games has almost done its rivals a favor; GTA 6 is big enough to soak up the competition from Black Friday, and the whole of October is still up for grabs.
But that relative freedom only extends in one direction. GTA 6’s date is so late that most rivals can’t reasonably go after. Publishers have to be confident they can hit October dates — which will also be very hotly contested — or face a delay into 2027. And the latter option comes with the slim but far from nonexistent possibility that GTA 6 will be delayed again, too.
What are the games that are facing this dilemma? Insomniac Games’ PS5-exclusive Marvel’s Wolverine is one of the few 2026 releases that is even vaguely comparable to GTA 6 in terms of production scale and commercial potential. Sony — which stands to make a mint from GTA 6, for which PS5 will be the de facto lead platform — will want to place it very carefully. Assuming Insomniac is on track, it’s easy to see Sony going for the same early-October slot as Ghost of Yōtei.
It’s Microsoft, however, that faces much higher stakes — and a much trickier programming challenge. It has no less than three major Xbox series revivals to launch in 2026: Forza Horizon 6, Gears of War: E-Day, and Fable. All three have a lot riding on them, and all three are close enough to GTA in their expected audience that launching too close to it is a legitimate concern. But Microsoft will also want to avoid cannibalizing its own titles, especially Horizon 6 and Fable, which hail from the same studio, Playground Games. Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer, who has personally promised all three series will return in 2026, will be fervently hoping they’ll all be ready to launch early in the year.
That’s before you even consider the next Call of Duty, which in normal circumstances might have been considered one of the only GTA-proof propositions in gaming. After the underwhelming launch of Black Ops 7, that’s no longer true, and Microsoft and Activision have a lot to prove with 2026’s offering. They can’t afford for this launch to go wrong, and will absolutely have to muscle that late October/early November slot, leaving even less room for the rest of the field.
As it stands, the major third-parties don’t have much on the board yet for the back half of 2026. EA seems to be focused on its sports roster this year, and there’s no new Assassin’s Creed expected (unless you count the rumored Black Flag remake). A few hungry upstarts will be looking to make their mark in late 2026, however. Rebel Wolves has partnered with Bandai Namco for its Witcher-adjacent vampire role-playing game The Blood of Dawnwalker, while Remedy is self-publishing the sci-fi adventure Control Resonant. Both can probably depend on their hardcore fans to show up regardless of proximity to GTA, but both will probably also be hoping to find a wider audience than that.
That’s doubly true for Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, the long-awaited debut of Amy Hennig’s Skydance New Media studio. It’s as mainstream an action game as they come, but without the pedigree, prestige, and inbuilt audience of something like Wolverine. This is exactly the kind of game that could get obliterated by GTA 6 if Skydance and publisher Plaion don’t get the release date right. It’s facing an existential threat.
Further down the list, you start to find games that are far enough away from GTA 6 in genre or style that they need not worry so much, like FromSoftware’s Switch 2-exclusive The Duskbloods, or PS5-exclusive fighting game Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls. They might even make for effective counter-programming. Nintendo, of all publishers, probably has the luxury of pursuing its own agenda without concerning itself with what Rockstar is doing.
But there’s only so much playtime to go around, and even smaller indie games will be looking to avoid GTA 6’s blast radius. One thing’s for sure: November 2026 is going to be uncommonly quiet for new game releases. Until, on Nov. 19, it suddenly isn’t.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
