Take-Two CEO doubles down on GTA 7 release timeline as GTA 6 preload goes live
13 years after the last mainline Grand Theft Auto raced into our lives, GTA VI is finally here.
Even better than being a long-awaited follow-up to 2013's record-breaking GTA VI, we're also getting something of a Vice City sequel as we return to this neon-splashed locale for the first time since 2002's beloved GTA: Vice City.
While GTA VI hasn't exactly given us a development time on a par with Duke Nukem Forever's 15 years, there's been a notable gap between outings.
Some of us doubted if we'd ever get to play the game, but with GTA VI preloads now live ahead of a November 19 release date, Xbox and PlayStation fans are ready to shoot up Vice City as Jason and Lucia.
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The franchise's very own Bonnie and Clyde look destined to immortalize themselves alongside GTA V's trilogy of Franklin, Michael, and Trevor, and if GTA V's extended lifespan thanks to GTA Online is anything to go by, GTA VI is destined to give us content for years.
Even though the game isn't out yet, some are already looking ahead to the eventual release of GTA VII.
What has Rockstar Games said about GTA VII?
The idea of GTA VII might seem laughable, considering we haven't even seen how GTA VI will fare, but a few hints from Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick suggest we won't be waiting another 13 years. A Bloomberg deep dive from October 2026 mentioned how Rockstar leaders were confident that GTA VI would be a "foundation upon which they can build new content at a faster pace, and they vow that their next release won’t take another eight years."
Those eight years refer to when GTA VI supposedly entered pre-production.
As Rockstar's co-head of development, Phil Hooker reiterated: "The engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly.
“I feel confident that we can build on top of this and go more sideways than upwards to build more compelling content."
We were reminded that it took less than a year to get from GTA III to Vice City, and even though there's no way we'll be playing GTA VII by Christmas 2027, artist Aaron Garbut added: "We foundationally changed a lot of stuff on this project. But now it’s done, and we’re not going to rip it apart." But where does this leave the mythical GTA VII?
Take-Two boss doubles down on GTA VII timeline
While this is far from confirmation that work on GTA VII is anywhere near beginning, the snippet was picked up by IGN and posed to Zelnick in a November 2026 interview. Quizzed on the Bloomberg piece and asked whether Rockstar will be able to release games quicker than ever, Zelnick said that he'll continue to support all of Take-Two's labels in their endeavours to make the "best entertainment experiences on earth." Hinting at GTA's future, he mused: "We do think that the nature and velocity of the content we'll see from our iconic franchises, including GTA, will look dramatically different over the next decade.
“And that's really being driven by our industry leading commitment to releasing the highest quality entertainment, to reaching our players in new ways and in new places and trying to maintain engagement with our consumers post-launch."
Everyone is on the GTA VI hype train right now, although the timing is convenient because it comes just after Xbox boss Asha Sharma championed a new 10-year deal between the gaming giant and Take-Two. Cheering the confirmation that GTA VI will be playable on Xbox One via cloud gaming, Sharma claimed that GTA VI (unsurprisingly) broke the record for being the most pre-ordered game on the Microsoft Store. Although she didn't reveal more about what this partnership would involve, could we see GTA VII land in this window?
Waiting 13 years between sequels is a long stretch by anyone's standards, and remember how we once got GTA III in 2001, Vice City in 2002, and San Andreas in 2004. Things have slowly been getting worse from there, and while we know it's obviously going to take longer as games become more advanced, everyone involved seems determined not to give us another 13-year wait.
