When do GTA 6 reviews come out? The November 18 embargo rumor

Rockstar hasn’t said when GTA 6 reviews can go live. The most detailed claim so far comes from a ResetEra poster called BlackBate: the embargo lifts on November 18, a day before launch, between 6 and 7 a.m. Eastern. Treat it as a rumor, but it matches how Rockstar handled its last two big releases.

Update, October 26: insider NateTheHate also wrote that the embargo is November 18, without a time, and that Rockstar has begun sending review code to media (NateTheHate on X). Rockstar hasn’t confirmed either.

What the rumor says

BlackBate posted on October 23 (summary by Notebookcheck):

• Written reviews and Metacritic scores go live on November 18, between 12:01 and 1:01 p.m. CET. That’s 6 to 7 a.m. Eastern, 3 to 4 a.m. Pacific and 11 a.m. to noon in the UK.
• Some sites and YouTube channels have to wait until 12:01 a.m. Eastern on November 19, launch day.
• Review codes for PS5 and Xbox hadn’t gone out yet, and BlackBate expects them in the week of October 26 or in early November.
• There probably won’t be hands-on previews before reviews. Creators so far have watched gameplay without playing.

Why some outlets would wait isn’t clear. One guess is that Rockstar wants written reviews first and videos, which can show story scenes, only once the game unlocks.

Who BlackBate is

A forum poster, not a journalist. Notebookcheck credits them with early word on announcements for Microsoft Flight Simulator, Death Stranding, Pragmata and Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. Insider NateTheHate separately said review copies would go out soon. Neither Rockstar nor Take-Two has commented, so we log the date as a rumor.

How Rockstar handled GTA 5 and Red Dead 2

The day-before pattern is familiar. Reviews of GTA 5 appeared on September 16, 2013, a day before its September 17 launch, and reviews of Red Dead Redemption 2 on October 25, 2018, a day before it came out. A November 18 embargo would follow the same routine.

What this means if you’re waiting

If the rumor is right, you’ll have most of a day to read reviews before the game unlocks: on PlayStation it opens at midnight local time in most regions (release times by region). Pre-loading starts on November 12, so the download won’t depend on review day. All the other dates are in our launch calendar.

Expect leaks around this time. Once review codes are out, footage and story details tend to surface early, so if you want to stay clear of spoilers, be careful with social media from early November.