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Rockstar's Kolbe recalls Take-Two CEO's reply to second GTA 6 delay: 'You're kidding'
GTA 6

Rockstar’s Kolbe recalls Take-Two CEO’s reply to second GTA 6 delay: ‘You’re kidding’

Rockstar’s head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe has described the moment she told Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick that Grand Theft Auto 6 needed a second delay. Speaking to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier for the feature ‘Inside the Making of Grand Theft Auto 6’, she recalled his response as: ‘You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.’ The same interview lays out why the game slipped twice, and the explanation reaches back to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Zelnick's reactionCONFIRMEDKolbe's recollection per Bloomberg, not a recording
Root cause of the slipsCONFIRMEDRDR2 pulled staff from GTA 6 for 'several years', per Bloomberg
Release dateCONFIRMEDNov 19, 2026, reaffirmed by Take-Two on May 21, 2026
Third delayDEBUNKEDZelnick called the date firm on the May earnings call
'No single crisis' framingRUMORDualShockers paraphrase, not verified in Bloomberg's text

What we know

Bloomberg’s feature is built on a daylong interview with Kolbe and other senior Rockstar staff at the studio’s Edinburgh office. Bloomberg describes it as the first time Rockstar has openly discussed the development challenges behind GTA 6.

According to Bloomberg, the development team told Kolbe they felt a delay was necessary. She called Zelnick to say the game would move to May 2026. Months later she went back to ask for a second delay, this time to November. Bloomberg reports the request ‘flabbergasted’ Zelnick.

Kolbe’s recollection of his words, as reported by Bloomberg and GamesRadar+, was ‘You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.’ She added that once the two talked through the reasons, he understood. She said Rockstar is lucky he is as reasonable as he is, because many executives would simply say ‘you just better figure out how to ship it’. Note that this is Kolbe’s account of the conversation, not a transcript.

On the question of why the game slipped at all, Bloomberg’s reporting, as summarized by PCGamesN and PCQuest, points to Red Dead Redemption 2. GTA 6 was originally meant to be developed alongside RDR2. As RDR2’s scope grew, Rockstar mobilized most of the studio, including senior leadership, to finish it. That pushed work on the next GTA back by ‘several years’.

Bloomberg says GTA 6 took more than eight years to make, counting the two delays and a stretch that development lead Rob Nelson calls ‘a dark period’, when the vision for the game was not yet clear.

Kolbe told Bloomberg that Rockstar’s leaders vowed not to repeat the RDR2 experience: ‘We’re not going to finish this game by crunching.’ Asked about crunch reports on GTA 6, she said the project has ‘not been perfect’ but is better than RDR2 was.

The public record at the time was thinner. Rockstar’s X post announcing the second delay on Nov 6, 2025, reported by TechRadar, said the extra months would let it finish the game ‘with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve’. Take-Two announced the delay the same day alongside its July to September quarterly results. Zelnick’s shareholder letter gave no specific reason. He told Variety that Rockstar believed a ‘limited amount of additional time is required for polish’. Per GamesRadar+, Take-Two shares fell nearly 10% that week.

Take-Two reaffirmed the Nov 19, 2026 launch in its Q4 FY2026 earnings report on May 21, 2026. Zelnick said Fiscal 2027 would deliver record operating performance driven by the launch, with projected net bookings of $8.0 to 8.2 billion.

What is rumored

A yellow and red classic muscle car ute with a hood scoop drives along a coastal road with turquoise ocean in the background.
A yellow and red classic muscle car ute with a hood scoop drives along a coastal road with turquoise ocean in the background. Image: Rockstar Games, official Grand Theft Auto VI screenshot
Close-up of the front grille and hood of a bright green Canis branded off-road truck with aggressive styling.
Close-up of the front grille and hood of a bright green Canis branded off-road truck with aggressive styling. Image: Rockstar Games, official Grand Theft Auto VI screenshot

DualShockers characterizes the Bloomberg piece as saying there was no single crisis behind the two delays, only many moving parts that did not come together as fast as hoped. It also says Rockstar leadership genuinely believed in a 2025 date while day-to-day staff were more sceptical.

DualShockers is a secondary outlet summarizing Bloomberg, and it is not on our trusted list. We could not locate the ‘no single crisis’ wording in Bloomberg’s text, so treat that framing as unverified. The point about sceptical staff also appears in PCQuest’s summary of the feature, which gives it slightly more weight, but it still rests on paraphrase rather than a direct quote.

Two older claims are now closed. Speculation through 2026 about a third delay has been overtaken by Take-Two’s May 21 reaffirmation and Zelnick’s statement on the earnings call that the date is firm. Bloomberg’s feature also says Nov 19 ‘appears to be’ the actual release date, with the caveat that nothing is certain until the game is in players’ hands. Separately, the idea that the Nov 2025 delay was tied to the firing of roughly 30 to 40 Rockstar staff in the UK and Canada has been rejected by a Take-Two spokesperson, who said the matters were entirely separate. Rockstar said those employees were fired for sharing confidential information in a public forum. The IWGB union disputes that reason and calls it union-busting.

What it means

A young woman with long braids, glasses, a denim jacket, and tiger-print thigh-high boots reclines on a surface near a colorful pool structure.
A young woman with long braids, glasses, a denim jacket, and tiger-print thigh-high boots reclines on a surface near a colorful pool structure. Image: Rockstar Games, official Grand Theft Auto VI screenshot
Low-angle shot of a gold-flake painted classic American lowrider with large decorative gold wheels against an orange circular backdrop.
Low-angle shot of a gold-flake painted classic American lowrider with large decorative gold wheels against an orange circular backdrop. Image: Rockstar Games, official Grand Theft Auto VI screenshot

The Kolbe interview fills a gap that Take-Two’s own messaging left open. In November 2025 the official line was ‘polish’. Bloomberg’s account suggests the deeper cause was structural: a studio that spent several years finishing RDR2 before it could fully commit to GTA 6, followed by a period where the game’s direction had not settled.

The exchange with Zelnick also says something about the publisher relationship. Kolbe frames his reaction as surprise followed by acceptance, and credits that acceptance with letting Rockstar hold to its no-crunch commitment rather than forcing a ship date.

For the release itself, every primary signal points the same way. Take-Two has reaffirmed Nov 19, Zelnick has called the date firm, and Rockstar’s leaders told Bloomberg their next releases will not take another eight years. Until the game ships, that remains a plan rather than a guarantee, but the sources currently agree.