When do GTA 6 reviews come out?

No GTA 6 reviews are out yet, and Rockstar has not announced a review date or a review embargo. The only report of an embargo comes from Insider Gaming, which said on October 14 that reviews will publish before the game's November 19, 2026 launch, but it did not share the date and gave no source.

That is the whole picture as of October 17. Rockstar has also said nothing about review copies, so everything below separates what is on record from what is only being claimed.

What Rockstar and Take-Two have said about GTA 6 reviews

Rockstar has published no review plan. The company on record is Take-Two, Rockstar's parent, and what it said was about scores, not timing.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke to The Game Business, a trade outlet, in an interview published May 28, 2026. He said critical reception "of course" matters for GTA VI and that review scores matter as much as they did in the past. He also said "Rockstar's scores are typically in the mid-90s, sometimes high 90s," and called that a reflection of the studio's commitment to quality.

Insider Gaming covered the same interview the same day. By its account, Zelnick said it used to be easier to handpick the journalists who reviewed a game ahead of time, and that social media is now very noisy. He also expected some dissenting voices at launch. None of that sets a review date.

GTA 6 review embargo: what is reported and what is not

Here is how the reports stack up, oldest first. Every one of them is unconfirmed by Rockstar.

  • May 16, 2026. Insider Gaming reported a claim from a Brazilian journalist on a podcast that Rockstar and Take-Two would send no review codes at all, and that press would instead play at a supervised location. Insider Gaming framed it as one claim.
  • October 14, 2026. Insider Gaming reported that it had "learned" reviews will go live before launch. It said it knows the preliminary embargo but would not print it because it is subject to change. It named no source.
  • October 15, 2026. Gameranx ran the October claim under a "Rumor" headline. It quoted the pseudonymous insider NateTheHate on a forum saying copies had not gone out yet but would before the end of the month.

The two claims point in opposite directions. One says no codes; the later one says codes and an embargo before launch. Neither has a statement from Rockstar behind it, and neither report carried a Rockstar comment. Treat both as rumor until Rockstar or a reviewing outlet says otherwise.

What happened with GTA 5 reviews in 2013

This is GTA V precedent, not a prediction for GTA VI.

GamingBolt's review roundup, dated September 16, 2013, opened by saying the GTA V media embargo was up and many outlets had published their reviews. Rockstar's press release, dated September 17, 2013 and hosted on Take-Two's investor site, announced GTA V as available that day on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. So GTA V reviews went live roughly a day before release.

The same release quoted early GTA V reviews, including perfect scores from IGN and Edge. That history of high marks says nothing about when GTA VI reviews will land. Rockstar can set a different window this time, and nothing it has said fixes one.

Are there any GTA 6 reviews so far?

No. Nothing published to date is a review.

What does exist is hands-on reporting, and it is worth keeping apart from a verdict:

  • Game Informer's cover story (issue 382, digital on September 29) is the magazine's own reporting, not a review. Our write-up is at the Game Informer GTA 6 cover story.
  • IGN published an interview with Rob Nelson of Rockstar North on October 7, recorded in July during about thirty minutes of hands-on play.
  • YouTubers who attended a preview session at Rockstar North posted their impressions. Those are each creator's account, not Rockstar's. We collect them in GTA 6 gameplay details from the previews.

None of these previews carries a score, so any "GTA 6 review score" posted today did not come from a published review.

Should you wait for reviews before you pre-order?

That depends on how you buy. Pre-orders opened June 25, 2026, at 79.99 USD for the Standard Edition and 99.99 USD for the Ultimate Edition, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S only. Pre-load opens November 12, a week before launch. Dates are in the GTA 6 pre-order and pre-load guide.

If reviews do arrive before November 19, they could land after pre-load opens. If you want to see scores first and already ordered, how to cancel a GTA 6 pre-order covers the store rules.

Reviews will not answer the question this site exists for. Rockstar has published nothing about cheats in GTA VI, and VI Cheats has verified no GTA VI code. If reviewers mention cheats, we will check that against the game itself. Until then, our GTA 6 cheats tracker lists only what is verified, which today is nothing.

Where GTA 6 review scores will appear

Once an embargo lifts, reviews usually run on the outlets themselves and are then averaged by aggregators such as Metacritic and OpenCritic. With no reviews published, neither can carry a GTA VI score yet.

Take-Two reports its next quarterly results after market close on November 9, ten days before launch. Anything said on that call about reception will be Take-Two's statement, and we will report it as such.

VI Cheats is independent and not affiliated with Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, Sony, Microsoft or any outlet named here.

Is there a GTA 6 review embargo date?

Not an announced one. Insider Gaming said on October 14, 2026 that it knows a preliminary embargo date before the November 19 launch, but it did not publish it and Rockstar has said nothing.

Will GTA 6 have review copies?

Rockstar has not said. A May 2026 claim said no codes would be sent; an October 2026 claim said copies would go out before the end of October. Both are unconfirmed.

Did GTA 5 reviews come out before release?

Yes, for GTA V. GamingBolt reported the GTA V embargo up on September 16, 2013, and Rockstar announced the game available on September 17, 2013.

Does GTA 6 have a Metacritic score?

No. No reviews have published, so there is no Metacritic or OpenCritic score for GTA VI as of October 17, 2026.