GTA 6 Reviews: No Scores Yet, Embargo Not Announced

No GTA 6 review exists. Nobody outside Rockstar has published a score, a Metascore or a verdict, and Rockstar hasn't named the hour when reviews are allowed to go live. The game comes out on 19 November 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

This page tracks the review picture: what's on record, what is only reported, how GTA V's reviews arrived, and how to tell a real score from a made-up one. It updates the day real reviews appear.

Metacritic lists no critic reviews yet

We checked Metacritic's Grand Theft Auto VI page on 11 October 2026. It lists PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, an initial release date of 19 November 2026, and says "Critic reviews are not available yet". The Metascore reads "tbd", and the user score reads "tbd" with 0 reviews counted on either side.

That is the plain state of play. Any "GTA 6 review" with a number on it today is invented, a preview impression, or a joke. Rockstar's own preview sessions this summer let a few creators watch the game without touching a controller; we covered what they could and couldn't say. Watching is not reviewing.

Rockstar has not announced a review embargo

An embargo is the date and time when outlets may publish their reviews. For GTA 6, none is on record. GTA Intel put it plainly in June: "Rockstar has not officially announced an embargo time". We looked again on 11 October. The newest items in the Featured News block on Rockstar's GTA VI site are the 8 October Rockstar Store and radio-station posts, and neither mentions reviews.

So the honest answer to "when will GTA 6 reviews come out?" is: not announced. Anything more specific than "around launch" is a guess.

Reported: reviewers may play on-site, with no review codes

Reported. One claim is circulating, and it comes from a single source. GTA Boom attributes it to the Brazilian journalist Pedro Henrique Lutti Lippe, speaking on the X do Controle podcast. His claim, as GTA Boom relays it: Rockstar will not send traditional review codes or copies. It will instead invite selected journalists to a secured location, where they play and write their reviews on site.

GTA Boom itself says Rockstar has not confirmed or denied this and that it rests on one journalist on a podcast. We agree with that framing. It fits Rockstar's heavy leak protection, but fit is not proof. If it is true, expect fewer outlets with a verdict on day one and a tighter, more controlled first wave of scores. If it is wrong, the usual code-and-embargo routine applies. We'll move this to confirmed only if Rockstar or a reviewing outlet says so on the record.

GTA V's scores arrived the day before launch

This section is about GTA V, not GTA 6. It shows what a Rockstar review cycle looked like once.

GTA V was released on 17 September 2013. Its Metacritic page shows a headline Metascore of 97 ("Universal Acclaim") from 58 critic reviews, and the per-platform scores run from 97 on the top versions down to 79 on the lowest. GTA Intel states that the GTA V embargo lifted on Monday, 16 September 2013, one day before release. That is a secondary source for a date we haven't re-verified against Rockstar itself, so treat it as a pattern, not a rule.

Red Dead Redemption 2 followed the same path in 2018: Metacritic shows a Metascore of 97 from 99 critic reviews. Past launches suggest scores landing in the last day or two before release. Nothing says Rockstar will repeat that for GTA 6, and the on-site plan above would change who reviews it.

How to tell a real score from a fake one

Fake review pages appear before every big release. A few quick checks:

• Look for the outlet's own site. A real review sits on the publication's domain with a named reviewer, not on a screenshot or a social post.
• Check Metacritic or OpenCritic. If the Metascore there still says "tbd", nobody has published. Aggregators don't skip ahead.
• Mind the platform. GTA 6 is announced for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S only. A "PC review" is not a real thing; our PC guide explains what is and isn't announced.
• Question the date. A "review" dated weeks before launch, with no outlet name and no word on how the reviewer played, is a fake or, at best, a preview.

One more caveat. A launch-week review scores the single-player game that ships on 19 November. Rockstar hasn't announced an online mode, and our GTA 6 Online guide tracks what is and isn't known. Reviews will not tell you how any online part plays months later.

When this page will update

When the first real critic review is published, or Rockstar announces an embargo, this page gets the date, the outlets and the first Metascore. Until then it stays a status page.

If you are deciding whether to buy before scores exist, our editions guide lays out what each version includes and what the preorder bonus requires. For everything else Rockstar has confirmed, see everything we know about GTA 6. The launch countdown shows the live clock, and the delay tracker lists every time the date was reaffirmed.