From how packed September and October are this year, you can tell a lot of publishers think this November will finally be the time for Grand Theft Auto VI. Other games are avoiding Rockstar's behemoth like the plague, but the developers at S-Game don't seem to care at all about the potential competition.
Speaking to PC Gamer, Phantom Blade Zero's director Qiwei "Soulframe" Liang said the idea of launching close to GTA VI didn't bother him. "Many people may think we have some marketing strategy to move it from the overcrowded September, and some are very worried that it's closer to November. We don't think about any of this. We only think of the quality of the product itself. I don't think competition can influence, much, the success of a work. Only the product itself matters," he said.
Phantom Blade Zero recently moved its release date to the end of October, where it's believed Grand Theft Auto VI's marketing will be in full force. "We don't think about what's happening there. We don't even think of the competition, what's launching ahead or after. What matters is how polished the game is, and if we have one or two extra months, we can fix more bugs, do more optimizations, so that we don't need a huge day one patch," Liang said.
It's the type of attitude we'd like to see in some more development studios. Sure, it may be rough having to launch at the same time as Grand Theft Auto VI, but looking at the state of September and October right now, it seems like it's going to be just as rough launching then as there are so many other games vying for attention. If GTA VI does launch this year, 2026 will be a year like no other, but S-Game is putting that out of its mind, to deliver us a project that'll last beyond the year it was released in.