Gamers will have to wait

“GTA VI” will not be released before fall 2025

The eagerly awaited next game in the "Grand Theft Auto" series will not be released until fall 2025. Publisher Take-Two Interactive announced the somewhat more precise time frame on Thursday, after previously only general talk of the calendar year 2025. It was not only fans who had hoped for an earlier release date: the share price fell by a good two percent in after-hours trading following the announcement.

So far, only a one-and-a-half-minute trailer of the game has been released - and that was last December. The setting of "Grand Theft Auto VI" is a fictional version of the US metropolis of Miami. The trailer features high-speed car rides, fast motorboats, beaches, weapons, crocodiles and many characters, including a protagonist named Lucia.

The previous edition of "Grand Theft Auto V" was released back in 2013. Take-Two also announced on Thursday that the game has now been purchased 200 million times.

The gaming website "Kotaku" reported at the end of March that the developers still needed time and that fall 2025 was the more likely date, although the developer Rockstar had at times aimed for a release at the beginning of the year. 'Kotaku' also wrote at the time that the management even feared a delay until 2026.

At Rockstar owner Take-Two, revenue fell by three percent year-on-year to 1.4 billion dollars (1.3 billion euros) in the past quarter. The bottom line was a loss of a good 2.7 billion dollars after a billion-dollar write-down, following a loss of 730 million dollars a year earlier.