GTA 6 news: awards, delays and layoffs collide

Grand Theft Auto VI has reached that weird celebrity status where it collects trophies before it even shows up to the party. At the Golden Joystick Awards in London on November 20, 2025, the unreleased blockbuster walked away with Most Wanted Game and Best Game Trailer.

Those trophies land in the middle of fan-voted love, a delay pushing the console release to November 19, 2026, and a dispute over more than 30 developers laid off in October 2025. No wonder it is hard to separate excitement from unease.

GTA 6 updates on stage

The game is one of only three titles ever to win the Golden Joystick Most Wanted award two years in a row, taking the honor in 2024 and again in 2025 alongside Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3.

That repeat win came bundled with Best Game Trailer at a fan-voted ceremony, where presenters accepted the prizes because Rockstar staff skipped the stage. Put together, those GTA 6 updates sketch a game that dominates mindshare before anyone has touched a controller, and that kind of anticipation is both thrilling and mildly terrifying.

Players, workers, and patience

The comparison most fans make is hard to ignore. Cyberpunk 2077 also earned back-to-back Most Wanted awards, launched in 2020 with serious bugs, and spent years repairing its image, while The Witcher 3 turned early issues into long-term praise.

This latest wave of GTA 6 news, paired with a second big release delay to November 19, 2026, shows that extra months cannot guarantee a smooth launch, but they at least give developers a better shot.

Offstage, the mood is far messier. In October 2025, Rockstar fired more than 30 staff in the United Kingdom and Canada, prompting protests outside its offices, open letters from hundreds of coworkers, and union legal claims over alleged union busting, while the company maintains the issue was leaks of confidential material.

When you stack that controversy beside the latest GTA 6 updates, the picture is simple: players want a spectacular escape, employees want basic security, and everyone else is trying to enjoy the show without ignoring who built it.