‘Stranger Things’ Star Mocks The One Release That’s Taking Longer Than Season 5

The wait for Stranger Things Season 5 has been incredibly long, but it can’t hold a candle to Grand Theft Auto VI. Stranger Things Season 5 is set to debut in November 2025, arriving three years after Season 4 concluded. Many fans have pointed out, jokingly, that it has taken Stranger Things nine years to air five seasons of television, noting the number of series that began and finished during the series’s runtime. Yet for as long as the wait has been, Grand Theft Auto VI was hit with another delay just days ago.

Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin on Stranger Things, even commented on the Grand Theft Auto VI delay. “Of course it did… We got seasons 1-5 of Stranger Things before GTA 6,” Matarazzo told IGN. Stranger Things debuted three years after the previous game, Grand Theft Auto V, was released in 2013, and will conclude nearly a full year before Grand Theft Auto VI‘s new November 2026 release date.

The Long, Complicated Wait for ‘GTA VI’

Grand Theft Auto VI

Rockstar

Grand Theft Auto VI is the long-awaited sequel to Grand Theft Auto V, which was released on Sept. 17, 2013. While rumors circulated for years about the status of a sixth game in the franchise, it was officially announced in 2022 and was originally set to hit shelves on May 26, 2026. The release was predicted to be a potential problem for movie theaters, with some industry analysts wondering if gamers staying home to play Grand Theft Auto VI would have impacted the box office of The Mandalorian & Grogu, which is set to open on May 22, 2026. Yet on Nov. 6, 2025, Grand Theft Auto VI publisher Rockstar announced the game would be delayed until Nov. 19, 2026.

Grand Theft Auto VI‘s delay sparked significant controversy, as one week prior to the delay, Rockstar fired 31 Rockstar North and three Rockstar Toronto employees, citing their discussion of confidential information to the public. Independent Workers’ of Great Britain (IWGB) union has accused Rockstar of union-busting, alleging that the employees who were fired were attempting to unionise with labour organisers on Discord. A protest took place on Oct. 31, 2025, outside Rockstar North’s Edinburgh office, and then on November 6 outside Take-Two’s London office, the same day the delay was announced. Even though the firings were not the direct cause of the delay, Rockstar will fail to meet deadlines, and morale is low, with many gamers calling out Rockstar’s suspected union-busting tactics.

Interestingly, both Stranger Things and Grand Theft Auto VI are being released during the holiday months of 2025 and 2026, respectively. The Stranger Things Season 5 release schedule is designed to take advantage of the holidays, with the first block airing the day before Thanksgiving, the second block on Christmas Day, and the final episode on New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto VI will be released one week before Black Friday, and its release might cut into the box office of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which will open in theaters one day after GTA VI. Both Stranger Things and GTA VI now have to live up to a great deal of expectations for fans who have waited years, and in GTA VI‘s case, a decade.