Will GTA 7 take as long as GTA 6? Take-Two's CEO says GTA's pace will look 'dramatically different'

Grand Theft Auto VI's wait has been the longest in the series' history, and Take-Two Interactive's chief executive says the next decade will look different. Asked by IGN on Nov. 9 whether Rockstar Games will be able to release games faster after GTA 6, Strauss Zelnick said the nature and pace of what comes from Take-Two's biggest series, GTA among them, "will look dramatically different over the next decade."

He didn't mention GTA 7 by name, and he didn't say when another Grand Theft Auto might come out. Neither Take-Two nor Rockstar has announced one. Here's what he said, what Rockstar's own developers have said and what it means for the wait.

What Zelnick said

IGN spoke to Zelnick by phone on Nov. 9, the day Take-Two reported its second-quarter results. It pointed to Bloomberg's October interview with senior Rockstar developers, who said GTA 6 had laid the foundation for faster development, and asked whether Rockstar would release more games faster and whether Take-Two would keep giving it the budget and time it gave GTA 6.

Zelnick said he will keep supporting all three of Take-Two's labels, Rockstar, 2K and Zynga, each of which has its own strategy. Then he said the nature and velocity of content from Take-Two's best-known series, including GTA, will change dramatically over the next decade. He put that down to Take-Two's focus on quality, on reaching players in new ways and new places, and on keeping them playing after a game comes out.

He didn't say whether he meant new games, updates to games already out, or both. In the same interview he said GTA 6 won't be delayed again, and that Take-Two will keep supporting GTA Online.

What Rockstar's developers said

Zelnick's answer follows what Rockstar's own leaders told Bloomberg Businessweek for its cover story on the making of the game, published Oct. 14. Phil Hooker, one of Rockstar North's three heads of development, said the engine, the tools and the team built during GTA 6 will let Rockstar work more quickly, and that the studio can build on top of them, Dexerto reported from the story. Aaron Garbut, another of the three, said Rockstar had changed a great deal at its foundations and wouldn't tear that apart.

Our story on Bloomberg's look inside Rockstar covers the rest of the feature, including the two screenshots Rockstar shared for it.

How long the wait has been

GTA 6 took more than eight years to make, Rockstar's leaders told Bloomberg, after a first research trip to Miami in 2015. It comes out on Nov. 19, 2026, 13 years and two months after GTA V, and eight years after Red Dead Redemption 2. Before this, the longest gap between main Grand Theft Auto games was the five and a half years from GTA IV in April 2008 to GTA V in September 2013. Our guide to how long GTA 6 took to make has the full timeline.

What isn't known

Take-Two's results on Nov. 9 list the games it has announced, and GTA 6 is the only Rockstar title on it. There's no GTA 7, no PC version of GTA 6 and no new online mode. In the same release, Zelnick said pre-orders for GTA 6 keep reaching unprecedented levels, and Take-Two kept its forecast of $8 billion to $8.2 billion in net bookings for the year to March 2027.

So the honest answer to "when is GTA 7 coming out" is that nobody has said. What Rockstar's developers have said, and what Zelnick's answer points to, is that the next wait isn't meant to look like this one. Our preview of Take-Two's results covers what investors were watching for, and our PC guide covers the platform question.