By trying to avoid a Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco and delaying GTA 6 again, I hope Take-Two doesn't end up with another Duke Nukem Forever instead

Date:
Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Description:
I get that Rockstar wants to release GTA 6 before its ready but what happens if its never ready?

FULL STORY

So, another day, another GTA 6 delay, with the highly anticipated game now
set to release on November 19, 2026, though many of us expect that date to
slip again. After all, its best to prepare for disappointment and not get
your hopes up. At this rate, I wont believe GTA 6 is being released until I have the game installed on my hard drive.

Still, despite my already gloomy outlook, this new delay was a blow. Im
getting on in years, and in my more morbid moments (Im not that old), I worry Ill die before playing the next GTA . At this rate, Im getting concerned that our sun will expand and consume the Earth, followed by the eventual
heat-death of the universe, which will cause Take-Two to further delay the game.

Im old enough to remember the heady days when we got three GTA games, GTA
III, GTA Vice City, and GTA San Andreas in just under four years. These days, it feels like entire civilisations rise and fall between instalments.

If I sound a bit gloomy, maybe even a little dramatic , then please indulge
me. As you might have guessed with my reference to hard drives, I am
primarily a PC gamer these days, so even if GTA 6 launches on consoles next November, people waiting for the PC version (which, lets admit it, will be
the best) will have to wait even longer.

I could be waiting until 2027 for this game, making it 30 years since I first played the GTA series, which originally launched on PC before consoles.

Can't see the forest for the trees

Joking aside, I do see the reasoning behind delaying the game. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke to IGN to say that when our competitors go to market before something was ready, bad things happen."

Its clear that people at Take-Two, which publishes the GTA series, had seen
the extremely rocky launches of games like No Mans Sky, Mindseye, and Fallout 76 , which were panned at the time of their releases for seemingly launching before they were finished.

The most famous example of this, and one that almost certainly didnt go unnoticed by anyone at Take-Two or Rockstar, was the notorious launch of Cyberpunk 2077 .

A graphically ambitious open-world RPG, and coming after the universally acclaimed Witcher 3 , the hype before its launch was huge. Then, after a few delays, Cyberpunk 2077 was seemingly forced to launch in a very messy, unfinished state. The backlash was huge and almost single-handedly killed the developer CD Projekt Reds reputation.

It makes perfect sense that the team behind GTA 6 doesnt want something
similar to happen, and delaying the game again to avoid that would certainly
be sensible. However, by further delaying GTA 6 (its now been 12 years since GTA 5 launched), I worry that the game could end up not becoming the next Cyberpunk 2077 but the next Duke Nukem Forever .

Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1997, following on from the commercial
and critical success of Duke Nukem 3D . Following years of delays, the game finally launched in 2011, 14 years after first being announced. Was it worth the wait? Sadly, no, it just wasnt a very good game.

Now, I dont think in any way that GTA 6 will be a bad game, but as the delays pile up, I worry it could resemble Duke Nukem Forever in other ways.

For a start, over the many years of development, 3D Realms, the developers, made numerous promises about the game. And with each passing year without a release, speculation and hype grew (at least to begin with). It became almost mythical, and no matter what state or quality Duke Nukem Forever ended up being, it was never going to live up to most peoples expectations.

Was it worth the wait? Sadly, no, it just wasnt a very good game.

I can see the same happening with GTA 6 . The longer we have to wait, the wilder the speculation gets especially as Rockstar isnt giving away much
info. So, people are hoping the map is massive , possibly being an entire
state comprised of several huge cities, all with buildings that can be
entered.

Other people are coming up with ambitious theories about the storyline, and while I think GTA 6 will have a big map and an involving storyline, even with the long development time and huge budget that the team has, it simply wont
be able to live up to some peoples expectations, inevitably leading to disappointment. The longer the delays, the higher these expectations will
grow.

Turning into a joke

Theres another danger as well. While Duke Nukem Forevers lengthy development initially built hype and excitement, it eventually took so long that it
became an ongoing joke. Even now, its often brought up (like Im doing) when a game gets seriously delayed.

When gamers (and critics) stop being excited about your game and start to
joke about it, thats not a good sign.

Another big issue with long development times is that Duke Nukem Forever continued the bawdy and non-PC humor of Duke Nukem 3D , which was very of its time. In the more enlightened 2000s, that humor fell completely flat.

Meanwhile, in those years while we waited for Duke Nukem Forever, many
landmark games were launched, particularly Half-Life and Halo , which transformed our expectations about what first-person shooter (FPS) games
could be. When Duke Nukem Forever finally arrived, not only was its humor outdated, but so too was its gameplay.

The longer GTA 6 is delayed, the more work will be required to ensure the
story and humor remain relevant.

This is a very real danger for GTA 6. The series has always indulged in edgy humor, but some of the things we laughed at back in 2013 with GTA 5 arent
quite so funny anymore. The series has also taken great pride in satirizing
the world, particularly the US, but that world has changed significantly
since then. The longer GTA 6 is delayed, the more work will be required to ensure the story and humor remain relevant.

Gameplay-wise, Take-Two and Rockstar need to be careful as well. Since the launch of GTA 5 , it has inspired a huge amount of open-world rivals, and
while some of those were pale imitations, others continued to innovate the genre, including Rockstars own Red Dead Redemption 2 . The further away we
get from GTA 5 s release, the less impressed were going to be if GTA 6 sticks too closely to its predecessors gameplay.

Ive been around long enough to see many games that get stuck in development hell, then manage to escape, such as Daikatana , another famous example, only to end up as major disappointments.

Take-Twos fear of GTA 6 becoming the next Cyberpunk 2077 could end up damming it to an even worse fate. After all, Cyberpunk 2077 eventually found
redemption after CD Projekt Red worked hard to fix its faulty launch, while Duke Nukem Forever ended up becoming both a joke and a cautionary tale.

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/gaming/consoles-pc/by-trying-to-avoid-a-cyberpunk-20 77-fiasco-and-delaying-gta-6-again-i-hope-take-two-doesnt-end-up-with-another- duke-nukem-forever-instead

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