GTA 6 Gets Another Delay, Half-Life 3 Launches And More 2026 Gaming Predictions
The biggest gravitational force remains Grand Theft Auto 6, even in its continued absence. Several analysts see Rockstar's long-awaited sequel as both a growth catalyst and a risk. Newzoo's Emmanuel "Manu" Rosier warns that another delay in 2026 would "start to test industry and investor patience," shifting the narrative from confidence in Rockstar's polish to concerns about ballooning scope and expectations. Ampere Analysis' Piers Harding-Rolls, by contrast, expects GTA 6 to land and become "the largest entertainment release of all time in terms of revenue generated in its launch months," helping drive modest market growth after years of stagnation.
Rosier also flat-out predicts that Half-Life 3 will launch in 2026. It's not as unlikely as you might think; many other analysts and industry-watchers have observed that a title like Half-Life 3 could absolutely move Steam Machines, even if it isn't necessarily exclusive to Valve's little black box. It's hard to imagine what exclusive qualities a Steam Machine (as we understand it) could bring to the title; most likely it will be a standard PC release that simply coincides with the new system.
Hardware and platforms are another fault line. Analysts broadly agree that the console market is converging with PC and mobile rather than expanding outright. Rosier predicts the Switch 2 will trail the original Switch as the pool of first-time buyers shrinks and competition from PC handhelds intensifies. Meanwhile, Harding-Rolls sees Valve's upcoming Steam Machine selling "a few million units," but stresses that positioning either that or a hypothetical "Steam Deck 2" as a true console competitor is "wide of the mark."
Of course, AI looms large, but not necessarily where players will see it. Rosier argues that AI investment will "quietly raise the barrier to entry," soaking up memory, storage, and component capacity, and putting upward pressure on hardware pricing—some of which we're already seeing, with major PC vendors having to raise prices on new inventory. Harding-Rolls expects AI-driven gameplay experiments in 2026, but characterizes them as "a sideshow rather than a main event," at least for now.
On the content side, analysts point to safer bets and ecosystem thinking. Harding-Rolls expects more mid-priced, high-production-value games, narrative-focused titles rooted in cultural heritage, and continued franchise expansion alongside an influx of "possibly too many" games in the "cozy" micro-genre; these are games that offer low-stakes management or collection gameplay with little in the way of failure modes. Fortnite and Roblox continue to loom as gravitational platforms, with big publishers increasingly unable to ignore their scale.
Structurally, the industry's scars remain visible. Layoffs have slowed but not stopped, growth is projected in the low single digits, and direct-to-consumer strategies are becoming mandatory rather than optional, particularly in mobile. As Harding-Rolls puts it, regulation and platform fees mean "most major mobile games publishers will have a DTC strategy in place" by the end of 2026.
Taken together, the analysts describe an industry no longer in freefall, but still ducking, diving, and waiting for its next true inflection point... which might just be the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI. Head over to GamesIndustry.biz to read the full article, which includes some surprisingly insightful commentary.
