GTA 6 First Review Details Leaked

Published Oct 16, 2026, 7:31 AM EDT

Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work.

Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work.

With Grand Theft Auto 6 looming on the horizon, its release mere weeks away, fans are understandably eager to both get their hands on it and hear what the critical consensus behind it is. While Rockstar's latest open-world effort will almost undoubtedly be a triumph in game design and storytelling (after all, one would hope that spending billions on a game would result in at least a competent release), reviews will ultimately help inform prospective purchasers and fans on whether they should purchase GTA 6.

Fortunately, details about Grand Theft Auto 6's reviews have finally begun to leak. Amidst all the controversies surrounding GTA 6, it is important to get at least a little clarity on whether one's investment is well-placed. This is especially true as the game's more expensive Ultimate Edition is being called a necessity at this point on account of it containing crucial gameplay features as opposed to simple cosmetics.

A short while ago, fans were furiously debating GTA 6's Metacritic score, believing it would fail to reach as high as 99 or even the coveted 100, which, thus far, has only been awarded to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Of course, that was all mere speculation, with fans having little idea of when they could actually expect official reviews to start flooding in, the very ones that will ultimately determine the game's Metacritic score. Well, fortunately, we now know when to expect the review embargo for GTA 6 to drop thanks to recently released leaks.

The review embargo for Grand Theft Auto 6 will drop before the game's release, according to a recent report from Insider Gaming. The publication claimed that "Grand Theft Auto 6’s review [embargo] will go live before the release on November 19," although it followed this up by stating the exact review embargo date as "it’s subject to change." Frankly, from experience, review embargoes don't tend to shift all that much, but it isn't particularly surprising to see the website keep the date under lock and key, as sites that receive codes are often told to keep it quiet.

Historically, Rockstar's games had their review embargo dropped the day before release. Red Dead Redemption 2's reviews went live on October 25, 2018, the day before its launch. Similarly, GTA 5's review embargo dropped on September 16, 2013, which, you guessed it, was a day before it launched on September 17. So, it is extremely likely that GTA 6's review embargo will follow a similar pattern and drop the day before launch day. Of course, fan reviews won't start appearing until after launch, although that hasn't stopped them from review bombing GTA 6 already.

If that is the case, then fans can expect the review embargo for GTA 6 to drop on Wednesday, November 18, 2026. Of course, this is just an estimate based on historic patterns and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, Rockstar is not known for deviating from the expected all too much, so it would be surprising to see GTA 6's review embargo drop any earlier. Regardless, we won't have to wait very long to find out, as Grand Theft Auto 6 launches in just over a month.

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