{"id":903365,"date":"2026-11-02T15:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T15:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/903365\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T15:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T15:54:15","slug":"we-got-a-record-gaming-blitz-before-gta-vi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/903365\/","title":{"rendered":"We Got a Record Gaming Blitz Before \u2018GTA VI\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Video Games<\/a>Video Games<\/a>As they made way for \u2018GTA,\u2019 game makers created an unprecedented pileup of quality titles\"\"Getty Images\/Rockstar Games\/Ringer illustration\"\"<\/a><\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/a>By Ben Lindbergh<\/a>, Rob Arthur<\/a>Nov. 2, 12:47 pm UTC \u2022 10 min<\/p>\n

On June 23, Marek Tyminski, founder and CEO of Polish video game developer and publisher CI Games, announced<\/a> that his studio\u2019s next game, Lords of the Fallen II, would not be arriving this fall as previously planned. Instead, the sequel to the 2023 reboot of the original Lords of the Fallen would be shifting to the first quarter of 2027. Some of the reasons sounded standard for a video game delay: The \u201cadditional integration, iteration, and polishing time\u201d would help \u201crefine and strengthen the overall experience\u201d to \u201cdeliver the highest possible quality at launch.\u201d But Tyminski cited another factor outside of his company\u2019s control: \u201cThis updated release window also strategically positions Lords of the Fallen II outside of a highly competitive holiday period, ensuring the game receives the dedicated attention it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyminski didn\u2019t have to specify why the holiday period would be highly competitive, or why Lords of the Fallen II might have trouble seizing the spotlight this fall. Everyone knew what he was referring to: Grand Theft Auto VI, as well as the prodigious pileup of other big games that have already scrambled to get out of GTA\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

GTA VI, the latest in Rockstar Games\u2019 sensational series of open-world crime epics and a direct sequel to the third-bestselling<\/a> game of all time, will arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X\/S on November 19. Thirteen years of pent-up demand<\/a> for a new numbered GTA, along with glimpses (Rockstar-sanctioned<\/a> and otherwise<\/a>) of the game\u2019s gorgeous vision of Vice City, have fueled record hype for the holiday behemoth. Rival publishers have long anticipated that GTA would monopolize gamers\u2019 money, time, and attention late this year. Some, such as Tyminski\u2019s CI Games, chose to bail on 2026 altogether. But many others resolved to get their games out early enough to make hay before GTA. Consequently, a wave of great games has already crested. We got a record gaming blitz before GTA VI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When GTA VI was delayed for the<\/a> second<\/a> (and, it turns out, final) time in November 2025, the gaming gauntlet was thrown down. Rockstar had essentially licked this whole holiday season to claim that time as its own. As Bloomberg\u2019s Jason Schreier wrote<\/a> after the first delay last year, \u201cGrand Theft Auto VI promises to be a thermonuclear bomb on the product release calendar, leveling whatever games happen to be anywhere in its vicinity at the time of detonation. It is expected to be the biggest entertainment release of all time and will suck up player attention and media coverage for days if not weeks. Other game companies want to stay as far away as possible.\u201d Schreier, a plugged-in reporter who frequently breaks news about game development, emphasized, \u201cCompeting game-makers don\u2019t want to risk being anywhere near GTA VI and will do everything they can to avoid it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably no coincidence, then, that this year\u2019s release schedule has been historically front-loaded\u2014and crowded. The chart below shows the number of games that received a Metascore\u2014Metacritic\u2019s weighted average rating of the critical consensus\u2014of at least 85 out of 100 through October 31 of each year dating back to 2001. This year\u2019s tally of 62 such games is the highest on record, well above the median of 43. And this year\u2019s pace has only accelerated over the past few months, as indicated by the black line\u2019s separation from the blue mass composed of the preceding 25 years. August, September, and October of 2026 were packed with good games as companies collectively cleared the decks before GTA\u2019s debut.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Like a stampede of forest fauna fleeing an advancing wildfire, game publishers have engaged in a headlong rush to leave a sizable buffer on both sides of November 19. The past few months have featured a succession of blockbuster bangers, such as Big Walk, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Valheim, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Gears of War: E-Day, Final Fantasy Resonance, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and Phantom Blade Zero, in addition to other well-regarded indies like Well Dweller, Enshrouded, and Dressmaker. From midsummer through late fall, hardly a week went by without a buzzy new game. And immediately before and long after GTA\u2019s arrival, hardly a week will include one. To invoke a song that once appeared<\/a> on a Grand Theft Auto soundtrack, every date from mid-November on has unofficially been designated (Don\u2019t) Fuck Wit GTA Day. And almost everybody\u2019s celebratin\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust about everyone got out of the way of Grand Theft Auto VI\u2019s launch,\u201d confirms Mat Piscatella<\/a>, senior director and video game adviser at market research company Circana. Piscatella adds, \u201cA big chunk of games shifted into September and October, and a bunch of others into 2027. Even games that are on platforms Grand Theft Auto VI won\u2019t release on, and in genres where the cross appeal to a Grand Theft Auto VI would be hard to find. \u2026 As soon as the Big Gorilla pounded its chest with its announced release date, everyone scattered.\u201d Piscatella calls the pre-GTA scheduling frenzy \u201cwild to see, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s combination of quality and quantity stands out when we compare the count of games with 85-plus Metascores from the past six months (May through October) to the count in the same period on the calendar in each of the past 25 years, as well as every rolling span of equivalent length.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s cadence also ranks high if we look at three-month samples (August through October):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the graph of two-month samples (September through October) also shows a 2026 spike:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Because 2026 comes in near or tied for the record within each of those windows, it\u2019s unequaled overall. The game industry may, in some ways, be broken<\/a>. But the games have been good.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, many more<\/a> games come out per year now than in decades past, though that doesn\u2019t affect this data that much. Even on a rate basis, 2026 has been special. All in all, 9.4 percent of qualifying games this century have achieved an 85-plus Metascore. But the rate to date in 2026 is 15.2 percent, tied with 2001 for the loftiest figure. And the vast majority of the thousands<\/a> of games released annually\u2014more<\/a> and more<\/a> of which are low-effort, vibe-coded<\/a> clones<\/a>\u2014on storefronts such as Steam and itch.io don\u2019t meet the minimum of seven reviews required to appear on the yearly Metacritic lists<\/a> we\u2019re drawing from.<\/p>\n

More relevant is the number of non-original games that meet the Metascore standard. There are more remasters, remakes, collections, and so forth than there used to be\u2014and many of the games that are being upgraded and recycled now hadn\u2019t yet come out for the first time in the earlier windows we\u2019re considering. If we filter out all titles with keywords that often denote rereleases, 2026 still ranks high, but not highest.<\/p>\n

Of course, collections, remasters, and remakes, such as Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\u2014Remastered, and Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter (or, for that matter, this week\u2019s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/a> and World of Warcraft: Forever<\/a>), respectively, do contribute to how stacked a year\u2019s gaming lineup looks. And these charts of games with 85-plus Metascores don\u2019t include such near misses as 2026\u2019s Star Wars Zero Company<\/a>, Control Resonant<\/a>, Order of the Sinking Star<\/a>, Silver Pines<\/a>, Castlevania: Belmont\u2019s Curse<\/a>, The Blood of Dawnwalker<\/a>, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies<\/a>, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight<\/a>, Assassin\u2019s Creed Black Flag Resynced<\/a>, and MIO: Memories in Orbit<\/a>\u2014or the critically disappointing<\/a> but nonetheless bestselling<\/a> (and system-selling<\/a>) Marvel\u2019s Wolverine.<\/p>\n

By any permutation of Metascore thresholds and time spans, 2026 has been a relatively loaded year\u2014even before the trifecta of Zelda, WoW, and the main event, GTA. But the rapid pre-Halloween pace of good-game releases owes a bit to the pressure publishers felt to cram their releases into the period preceding GTA\u2019s discourse-dominating debut. And that pace is about to slow down dramatically\u2014partly because some games that could have joined the autumn hit parade have, perhaps prudently, thrown in the towel for 2026.<\/p>\n

The pre-GTA traffic jam was so bumper-to-bumper that games faced stiff competition no matter where they positioned themselves. Take Onimusha: Way of the Sword, which revitalized a third-person samurai swordplay franchise that had lain dormant for decades. At Sony\u2019s State of Play presentation in early June, Capcom announced<\/a> that Onimusha would come out on September 25. Unfortunately for Capcom\u2014which developed and\/or published a multitude<\/a> of titles this year\u2014virtually every big game that got a target date during summer showcase season was lined up in close<\/a> proximity<\/a> to others.<\/p>\n

Way of the Sword\u2019s original date put it one day after Control Resonant and Silent Hill: Townfall and one week before Ace Combat 8 and Minecraft Dungeons 2. So Capcom took the unusual step of moving the game forward<\/a>, to September 4 \u2026 which was one day after The Blood of Dawnwalker and Orbitals and one week after Zero Company and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. If November was the rock, September was the hard place. Schreier wrote<\/a> that the overlap in late summer and early fall would \u201cinevitably lead to some<\/a> losers<\/a>, but game publishers around the world are making the calculation that releasing in a crowded month is less risky than trying to come out anywhere near Grand Theft Auto VI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than opting for the \u201cdamned if you do\u201d or \u201cdamned if you don\u2019t\u201d paths to competing with GTA in 2026, some companies opened door number three: kicking the can to 2027. Although Tyminski didn\u2019t single out GTA in his explanation for Lords of the Fallen II\u2019s postponement, the makers of a few other prominent titles\u2014including Fable<\/a>, Squadron 42, and Danganronpa 2×2\u2014did<\/a> mention the calendar\u2019s big bully<\/a> by name when disclosing a delay. Danganronpa 2×2 writer Kazutaka Kodaka even joked<\/a>(?), \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have time to make the game while playing GTA VI, so it was inevitable that we moved the release time.\u201d Other games\u2014including At Fate\u2019s End<\/a>, No Rest for the Wicked<\/a>, Emberville<\/a>, Witchbrook<\/a>, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis<\/a>, and The Duskbloods<\/a>\u2014shifted from late 2026 to early 2027 without publicly playing the GTA card.<\/p>\n

Granted, games get delayed all the time, and some of these titles probably would have slipped even if GTA weren\u2019t sucking up all of the industry\u2019s oxygen. In fact, GTA makes a convenient bogeyman to blame for a further delay if, like<\/a> Squadron 42, you\u2019re already more than a decade overdue. To the extent that developers and publishers did push the postponement button based on GTA, though, some may have overreacted<\/a> to the risk the tentpole poses. Lords of the Fallen, for one, isn\u2019t a direct competitor to GTA; it\u2019s a dark-fantasy action RPG\/Soulslike<\/a>, and it\u2019s coming to all platforms, including some (PC and Switch 2) that won\u2019t initially support GTA VI. Piscatella says some publishers shifted their on-sale dates \u201ceven when the decision to do so seemed more emotional than rational,\u201d and he calls the scattering of releases \u201cmuch more vibes- than data-based.\u201d For instance, he adds, \u201cI\u2019m not sure why a PC cozy sim would have to move for Grand Theft Auto VI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of the wisdom of ceding so much territory to Rockstar\u2014much as some game makers (maybe misguidedly<\/a>) gave a wide berth<\/a> to last year\u2019s Hollow Knight: Silksong\u2014Piscatella concludes, \u201cThe result is a completely wide-open, aircraft-hanger-sized window for the few big games launching in November.\u201d Namely, GTA VI, Ocarina of Time (a remake of the classic 1998 Nintendo adventure), and WoW: Forever (a new branch of Blizzard\u2019s beloved 2004 MMORPG<\/a> that largely returns the ever-evolving game to its original state).<\/p>\n

Zelda and WoW make some sense as GTA counterprogramming: They\u2019re established, throwback brands in non-GTA genres that appear on platforms where people can\u2019t play GTA this year. But beyond that duo, publishers are acting as if Rockstar has been broadcasting Dave Bowman\u2019s warning about Europa<\/a> from 2010, but about the last six weeks of the year: \u201cAttempt no landing there.\u201d After this week, the calendar<\/a> for the remainder of 2026 will be bereft of big-name games other than GTA.<\/p>\n

Then again, the tumbleweeds blowing through this year\u2019s December slate don\u2019t look quite as out of place as they once would have. The graphs above displayed some impressive peaks in the early 2000s, because back then, the holiday season was supreme<\/a>. Over the past quarter century, though, the share of annual releases with 85-plus Metascores that come out during the last three months of the year has fallen from about 40 percent to roughly 25 percent\u2014or what we would expect if such titles were distributed evenly throughout the year. The industry has weaned itself off its dependence on stocking stuffers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As the medium has matured<\/a> and gamers have gotten older, the disposable income consumers can lavish on gaming might correlate less closely to how close Christmas is. And perhaps publishers have learned<\/a> that there\u2019s a virtue to spreading out marquee games\u2014which is ironic, in light of this year\u2019s blockbuster boss rush<\/a>. At least the post\u2013November 19 slowdown will allow gamers who haven\u2019t set up permanent residence in Vice City to whittle away at the backlogs they built up this summer and fall\u2014until February<\/a> 2027, which, thanks to GTA-induced delays, is<\/a> shaping<\/a> up<\/a> to be the new October 2026.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing the 2026 lineup lacks<\/a> so far, it\u2019s a consensus leader in the clubhouse for Game of the Year. A long list of games with Metascores of 85 and up dropped before the midyear onslaught, including but not limited to [deep breath] Resident Evil Requiem, 007 First Light, Mina the Hollower, Pragmata, Pok\u00e9mon Pokopia, Cairn, Mewgenics, Mixtape, Forza Horizon 6, Denshattack!, Sektori, Saros, Esoteric Ebb, Nioh 3, Titanium Court, And Roger, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls\u2014plus huge hits with lower Metascores, such as Crimson Desert and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. [Gasps for air.] None of those would be a prohibitive front-runner in a normal year, as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was last year. But maybe that\u2019s moot, because GTA VI will be eligible<\/a> for the Game Awards, and prediction markets call it an 85 percent favorite for GOTY.<\/p>\n

GTA VI is grand not only in anticipation and title but also in price<\/a> and size<\/a>. No wonder it\u2019s turned into a totem of fear and hope for an entire industry. Maybe, as some optimistic publishers believe<\/a>, GTA will be a rising tide that lifts all titles by selling more consoles and bringing greater attention to gaming. Or maybe it will box out and drown out everything else. However Rockstar\u2019s grand opening pans out, 2026 has already been a stacked year for games\u2014and gamers who\u2019ve gorged on tasty appetizers for 10 months may be running out of room for dessert. But come November 19, even players who\u2019ve been feeling fairly sated will likely loosen their belts, pick up their controllers, and greet GTA with a familiar refrain<\/a>: Ah shit, here we go again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ben is a writer, podcaster, and editor who covers culture and sports. He hosts \u2018Effectively Wild\u2019 at FanGraphs and previously wrote for FiveThirtyEight and Grantland, served as editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus, and authored \u2018The MVP Machine\u2019 and \u2018The Only Rule Is It Has to Work.\u2019Rob is a journalist and data scientist who writes about sports, movies, criminal justice and other subjects. He previously covered baseball for FiveThirtyEight and has been published in outlets like The New York Times and The Atlantic. He has a PhD in evolutionary genetics and has offered statistical consulting services to MLB teams, Fortune 500 companies, and various other clients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Video GamesVideo GamesAs they made way for \u2018GTA,\u2019 game makers created an unprecedented pileup of quality titlesGetty Images\/Rockstar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-903365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}