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With the number of games coming out every year, you’d think game development was a simple thing. You would, of course, be very wrong. No matter how carefully a studio plans or how hard executives insist their devs crunch, delays happen. We’ve already seen it happen to GTA 6, which was scheduled for a 2025 release before being pushed to May 2026 and then delayed again to November 2026. However, it isn’t the only big release that is set to come out in 2026 that I think could be subject to delays.

Let’s start with the obvious one. The big news, once again, is that Rockstar has pushed the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, and I’m honestly a bit unsure that they’ll even be able to hit the November 2026 release date for GTA 6. Not that they couldn’t release it on this date and sell an absurd number of copies at launch regardless of the state of the game, but this is a huge release for the developer.

GTA 5 is one of the most profitable games of all time and continues to bring in money for them thanks to Grand Theft Auto Online. They are in a good place financially, and the reputational risk of releasing the new GTA game in a less-than-perfect state is too high. Don’t be surprised if Rockstar delays GTA 6 to 2027 just to play it safe.

Rockstar isn’t the only game studio that has so much riding on their 2026 release that it may become a 2027 release. Insomniac’s Wolverine, which was teased for years before getting a surprise trailer in late 2025, is scheduled for a general 2026 release window. Personally, I approach anything with a wide release window at the start of the year as likely to get delayed, and Wolverine means a lot to Insomniac. Their Spider-Man games remain some of the best games on the PS5, and Wolverine is meant to expand that world.

At this point, Insomniac has to be eyeing up a late 2026 release date for Wolverine. Pushing it back to the first half of 2027 doesn’t feel unreasonable. It puts it out of the blast radius of the current GTA 6 release date (which, again, I expect to change) and gives them more time to market it while there is still oxygen in the games journalism industry to spare. I wouldn’t be surprised if Insomniac and Sony played it safe with what could be one of the last big exclusives for the PS5 before the next generation gets announced.

What about Elder Scrolls 6? It has been 15 years since Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was originally released, and even Bethesda is running out of new platforms to rerelease it on. The next Elder Scrolls game has been teased for years and we know that the developer is actively working on it, but we’ve seen nothing but a quick and vague teaser back in 2018. Yes, it has been nearly eight years since we had an update on this game, and I don’t think that will change this year. I’m not even hopeful of getting The Elder Scrolls 6 in 2027 at this point – look for it in 2028 when the next console generation is in full swing.

Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra is another that has been given a 2026 release date, but hasn’t done anything to convince me that it will actually happen. While this game isn’t effective by the EA chaos in 2025 that saw their Black Panther game cancelled and the Motive Iron Man game nowhere to be seen, it is still suspicious that Skydance New Media still hasn’t released a trailer or anything else to promote it. We know it won’t hit its “early 2026” release date at this point, but how far will the delay push it? Maybe to 2027, though I’m not hopeful it will ever be released at this point.

Finally, let’s talk about Fable. I love the Fable series for what it is, a reasonably good RPG that takes place in a fun setting. However, I advise everyone to take anything used to promote Fable with a grain of salt; even without Peter Molyneux involved in this entry, the series has a history of overpromising and underdelivering. Until it is in my hand and loaded on my PC, I remain dubious of any Fable release news.

The thing is that if even half these games release in 2026, like expected, this year will be a massive one for AAA games in the way that 2025 was huge for AA studios. I’d love to be wrong about GTA 6 and everything else here, but I’m not pinning my hopes on any of these games coming out in the next 12 months.

The gaming industry has come a long way since Pong blew all our minds in the 70s. We've got everything you need to know about the next big thing in games. Of course, Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be the big game of 2026, but there are plenty of other games coming out between now and then. Here is our starter guide for every gamer:

• All upcoming games in 2025 and beyond
• Gamify My Life, our weekly gaming column designed
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