The games that moved out of GTA 6's way, and the analyst who calls the fear 'overblown'

Emberville, a pixel-art action RPG, was delayed on Oct. 26, a day before it was due to enter early access on Steam, and some headlines put it down to Grand Theft Auto VI. Its developer's announcement didn't mention the game. Cygnus Cross said it needs more time to act on feedback from its Steam Next Fest demo, such as reworking bow combat, and moved the launch to Jan. 7, 2027.

Other games did move away from GTA 6's Nov. 19 launch, and their makers said so. The analyst who tracks US game sales for Circana thinks they're more afraid of it than they need to be.

Who moved, and what they said

Fable. Xbox moved Playground Games' Fable out of fall 2026 on May 29. Its post on X listed the year's big releases, from Halo: Campaign Evolved and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 to Grand Theft Auto VI, and said: "In order to plan our game launches through the holidays, in a way that works best for players, we're moving Fable to February 2027 so it can have the dedicated moment it deserves." Xbox later dated it Feb. 23, 2027.

Squadron 42. Game director Chris Roberts pushed Cloud Imperium Games' single-player Star Citizen spinoff from the end of 2026 to the second quarter of 2027 in an August letter on the Roberts Space Industries website, PC Gamer reported. He didn't want to launch "into the attention buzz saw of GTA 6," he wrote. "While GTA 6 isn't launching on PC this November, pretty much all outlets and most content creators will be all over it, not leaving a lot of room for other coverage."

Danganronpa 2x2. Spike Chunsoft moved its expanded remake of Danganronpa 2 from 2026 to 2027 in July and has since dated it Jan. 14, 2027. In a Crunchyroll interview, producer Shohei Sakakibara said the team wanted more development time and to avoid launching alongside "a certain AAA/AAAA title," Automaton reported. Asked if that meant GTA 6, series creator Kazutaka Kodaka laughed: "I wouldn't have time to make the game while playing Grand Theft Auto VI, so it was inevitable that we moved the release time."

No Rest for the Wicked. On Sept. 1, Moon Studios moved its action RPG's 1.0 release from October to March 2027, saying it needs the time for performance, the class system and polish. It made no mention of GTA 6, PC Gamer noted.

One big game is staying in November

Nintendo's remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time comes out on Nov. 5 for Switch 2, two weeks before GTA 6. GamesBeat calls Nintendo the notable exception, writing that "almost every publisher has either retreated to the September-October release window or moved forward to 2027."

What Circana's analyst says

Mat Piscatella, Circana's director of video games, thinks the studios that moved overreacted. "The fear of many teams to put their game in the same window as GTA is completely overblown," he told GamesBeat in an interview published Oct. 23. "GTA is going to be a massive game. Of course it is."

His point is that not everyone will play it. Not all of the 49 million people who own a PS5 or an Xbox Series console in the US will want GTA 6, he said, and Switch owners can't play it at all. Studios making "any kind of cozy game or life sim or first-person shooter" still have an audience.

"Everyone's just scared," he said. "I guess I get it, but I just think it's completely overblown. But hey, it's given GTA a completely wide-open window because everyone else moved."

Is GTA 6 already selling consoles?

Some. US unit sales of the PS5 jumped 22% in September "as consumers prepared for the imminent debut of Grand Theft Auto VI," Bloomberg reported Oct. 22, citing Circana data. PS5 hardware revenue rose 43%.

Piscatella was more cautious about how much of that came from GTA 6. Weekly data showed some upticks after An Extended Look premiered on Netflix in August, he told GamesBeat, but a far bigger one in the launch week of Marvel's Wolverine. "Ballpark, that positive impact was probably 70% driven by Wolverine, 30% GTA VI, but it's all squishy numbers," he said. Xbox Series consoles, which also get GTA 6, had their lowest September ever, 27% below last year in units.

He called hardware "probably a bigger wild card than the game itself": people buying a console for GTA 6 may expect to pay $300 to $400, he said, and find prices around $700.

If you still need a console, our platforms guide covers every one that runs GTA 6, and our launch calendar has every date between now and Nov. 19.