Fans have got yet another theory about the release date of GTA 6, and this time it has to do with Borderlands 4… but it’s still probably wrong.
Although GTA 6 is by far the most anticipated release of 2025, so far publisher Take-Two has talked more about its other games, like Mafia: The Old Country and Borderlands 4.
Not only did last night’s State of Play share new gameplay footage of Borderlands 4, but Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford announced that a separate State of Play dedicated solely to the game will air this spring.
On top of that, Borderlands 4 now has a specific release date of September 23, which on the surface means nothing to GTA 6 fans, but some of them seem to think it’s yet another clue as to when the game is coming out.
What is the GTA 6 release date?
You should all know by now that GTA 6 is aiming for an autumn 2025 launch window. Take-Two has insisted on that since last May and has assured fans multiple times that it won’t be delayed… not that that’s stopped plenty from assuming it will be anyway.
Last week, during Take-Two’s latest earnings report, CEO Strauss Zelnick described this year’s release schedule as ‘one of the strongest ever for Take-Two, as we plan to launch Sid Meier’s Civilisation 7 on February 11, Mafia: The Old Country in the summer, Grand Theft Auto 6 in the fall, and Borderlands 4.’
The order in which Zelnick listed the games made it sound like Borderlands 4 will launch after GTA 6, possibly in the winter as a Christmas release. As such, with Borderlands 4 actually scheduled for September 23, some have assumed that GTA 6 will be out in early September, if not late August.
We’re going to have to be party poopers, though, and say this is very unlikely. For starters, Zelnick never explicitly said GTA 6 would come out before Borderlands 4. It’s far more likely he listed Borderlands 4 last because Take-Two didn’t have a public release date yet (and to avoid spoiling the State of Play reveal).
Plus, having Borderlands 4 and GTA 6 within the space of one month feels too close together. Even if GTA 6 came out at the very beginning of September, given how popular it will be, it would still risk overshadowing Borderlands 4 and harming its sales.
Furthermore, not to be mean to Borderlands fans, but no one who picks up GTA 6 is going to drop it for a new Borderlands, especially if the rumoured GTA Online 2 mode launches alongside GTA 6 or shortly afterwards. Unless Take-Two wants Borderlands 4 to fail, it seems far wiser to get it out before GTA 6.
A September release for GTA 6 also wouldn’t make sense considering Take-Two will probably be launching this year’s NBA 2K game around that time too.
Zelnick didn’t mention NBA 2K26 as part of Take-Two’s release schedule, but the games have traditionally come out within the first couple of weeks of September.
At the very least, Take-Two would want a new NBA 2K game out to coincide with this year’s NBA season. While that doesn’t have an official start date, the season traditionally starts in October.
It’s a much safer bet that GTA 6 will arrive in October, at the absolute earliest, probably around the middle or the end of month considering Zelnick’s comments on the importance of spacing out Take-Two’s releases.
In an IGN interview ahead of last week’s earnings report, Zelnick was asked if Take-Two’s big releases risk cannibalising each other, to which he answered: ‘No, I think we will plan the releases so as not to have that be a problem. … I think that we will time our releases so as to respect the consumer’s need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.’
With Borderlands 4 potentially the biggest game in the series (or at least the ‘most open and free’ as Pitchford told GameSpot this past December), Take-Two is unlikely to give its players just a couple of weeks to get through it before launching GTA 6.
In lieu of any exact release date from Take-Two, this is ultimately pure speculation but considering there’s more public gameplay footage for Borderlands 4 than GTA 6, it’s hard to imagine the latter is set to release first.
Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
MORE: GTA 6 is skipping PC (for now) but will boost flagging console sales says Take-Two
MORE: Borderlands 4 certainly looks like a Borderlands game in first gameplay trailer
MORE: GTA 5’s Trevor wants to be in GTA 6 so he can ‘pass the torch’
