Another delay in the release of Grand Theft Auto 6. We get within striking distance of him and then, like a fox in the night, he scurries out of sight. The new release date is in a year – November 2026.
The wait seemed forever, but how long has it been in development? GTA 5 came out in 2013, 12 years ago – a gap that would have widened to 13 years by then GTA 6 will be released in 2026. If then it will come. No other GTA game took this long.
The gap between GTA 4 and 5 was five years; the gap between San Andreas and 4 was four years; the gap between Vice City and San Andreas was two years; and the gap between Vice City and 3 was one year. This list is like a microcosm of the gaming industry and how development times have skyrocketed over the years. Will it take 20 years to make the next GTA?
12 years is kind of a record, right? Wrong. But it's close. There is The Guinness World Record for the longest-in-development game is currently held by the notorious Duke Nukem. Duke Nukem forever. This game was released in 2021 after an incredible 14 years and 43 days of development. score confirmed by Guinness World Records team due to GTA delay – and it wasn't worth the wait at all.
But was Duke Nukem Forever really the longest development for a game? Beyond Good & Evil 2 requires a different opinion. I was there for the Paris UbiDays event. when Ubisoft first announced Beyond Good & Evil 2 in 2008And Since then development started again, turned off again. I lived for 17 years, although, unlike Duke Nukem Forever, BG&E2 has not yet come out and at this rate it never will.
Other long-term developments include Dragon Age 4, which was remade several times over 10 years; Cyberpunk 2077's, a game announced in 2012 and released eight years later in 2020; And Hollow Knight: Silk Song's, which was painfully out of sight for six years before finally being released this year. and broke the internet. Oh, and the Bloodborne remaster I came up with – it probably doesn't exist – but we look forward to it every time Sony broadcasts State of Play. One day, one day.
Here's a list of other games with extremely long development periods (related to NeoGAF, and curated and verified here where possible by me – you'll see links to evidence, so to speak).
- Los Angeles Noir, announced in 2004 and released in 2011 (eight years)
- The last guard started in 2007, leaked in 2009 as Project Tricoand released in 2016 (nine years)
- Command Fortress 2, started back in 1998 and eventually released as part of The Orange Box in 2007 (nine years).
- Doom 4, which became Doom 2016 and which was started in 2007 (nine years)
- Final Fantasy 15, which began as Final Fantasy Versus 13 in 2006. and was released in 2016 (10 years)
- Diablo 3, which started back in 2001 and launched in 2012 (11 years)
- Skull and crossbones, which began as an expansion of Assassin's Creed Black Flag in 2013. And then struggled to become independenteventually released last year (11 years old)
- Dead Island 2, which began back in 2012 from the developer of Spec Ops: The Line Yager.before Dambuster remade it and released it in 2023 (11 years)
- Nioh, released in 2017. but has a long and winding history dating back to 2004. (13 years old)
- Possibly Suicide Squad. which was mentioned as being in development back in 2010although Rocksteady was busy with Batman games. If it had been in development then, 14 years would have passed.
- And Metroid Dread, released in 2021 on Nintendo Switch. but started life as a DS project back in 2005 (16 years old)
However, there is an important technical detail regarding the Guinness Book of Records: the game must be announced. This detail means that Grand Theft Auto 6 has only been in development since 2022, when it was Hastily officially announced by Rockstar after game leak linked to hackers. First GTA 6 trailer – proper reveal – didn't happen until late 2023, meaning official development of GTA 6 will only last a few years, which I'm sure is far from the truth.
Guinness World Records also doesn't take into account post-launch development of a game, which in today's world of live-service games is an ever-expanding thing. World of Warcraft has been in development for 21 years, and it is far from the oldest online game. Valve's multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 has been around for 18 years. Even Grand Theft Auto Online is 12 years old. The way games are created has changed.
Of course, none of this makes the wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 any shorter. But, like a pot being watched, it will never boil if we only think about it. It's not that there won't be a shortage of other great games this year.
