Rockstar Games
Man on a pool float in Grand Theft Auto VI
We are five months away from the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto VI, which will drop 13 years after the last installment in the beloved video game franchise. Plenty of workplaces will be dealing with staffing issues thanks to diehards who will take time off to explore what the new version of Vice City has to offer, and one company in California is instituting an “operational pause” for the occasion.
The folks at Rockstar Games have spent decades setting the gold standard for open-world titles (and, arguably, the video game industry as a whole), and while the studio has pumped out plenty of hits over the years, none of them have made more of an impact than the Grand Theft Auto series.
That franchise has a history that stretches back to 1997, but it really came into its own after GTA III was released in 2001 before being followed by Vice City and San Andreas. The games entered a new era on the graphics front when GTA IV came out in 2008, and there was an even bigger leap in visuals when GTA V was released in 2013 en route to becoming the most profitable entertainment product ever produced.
Rockstar has taken its sweet time developing a follow-up to that title, but on November 19, 2026, the long drought will finally end with the arrival of GTA VI.
There’s a virtually unprecedented amount of hype surrounding the game’s release, and one company has decided to wave the white flag after experiencing a flood of requests for time off around the date it’s set to come out.
Burger Motorsports, a car parts company in California, is instituting an “operational pause” linked to the release of Grand Theft Auto VI
Rockstar is known for playing things close to the vest when it comes to revealing details of upcoming games, and GTA VI is no exception.
However, we know it will revolve around two Bonnie and Clyde-esque criminals doing their thing in a reimagined version of Vice City (and other parts of its fictionalized Florida), which will reportedly be responsible for the biggest map the franchise has featured to date.
Rockstar is also known for its history of production delays, and GTA VI has also been no exception. It was initially slated to come out in the fall of 2025, but the release was shifted to May 26, 2026 before it was once again changed to November 19th of this year.
On Wednesday, we got our first glimpse at the cover and learned that presales will kick off on June 25th, which means we’re almost exactly five months away from a release date that seemingly won’t be pushed back again.
The fact that GTA VI will come out on a Thursday is less than ideal for people who work a typical job, and there are plenty of gamers who will be taking a day (or two) off to ensure they won’t have to wait to dive in.
That would apparently include more than a few people who are employed by Burger Motorsports, a California-based automotive parts company that specializes in the sale of engine tuners designed to optimize performance.
Last week, it posted a message on Instagram concerning “multiple employee scheduling conflicts” it linked to the release of GTA VI while announcing it will be instituting a “company-wide operational pause” on launch day and warning customers about potential delays tied to that hiatus.
The tone of the message was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it doesn’t seem like it’s kidding around when it comes to giving workers time off to get their Grand Theft Auto on.
Must be nice.