Could Pokémon Gen 10 Get Delayed Over the New GTA 6 Release Date?

Rockstar Games surprised many players when they revealed that GTA 6 has been delayed until November 2026. Many Nintendo Switch 2 players are now worried that it could also delay the launch of Pokémon Gen 10. Will Grand Theft Auto’s new release window negatively impact Pokémon’s next-generation RPGs?

New GTA 6 Release Date Lands in Pokémon Gen 10’s Potential Launch Window

In October, Game Freak suffered a major leak that included their entire schedule of Pokémon projects for the next three years. According to the leaked documents, Pokémon Gen 10 is set to launch sometime in 2026. The games are reportedly called Pokémon Wind & Wave and have been in development for around four years now. However, Pokémon Gen 10 could be negatively impacted by Grand Theft Auto 6’s new launch date.

In a November 6 post on X, Rockstar Games confirmed that GTA 6 has been delayed to November 19, 2026. This is now the third time the much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto project has been delayed.

Since its reveal in 2022, the games industry has been dreading its inevitable release, as studios fear that GTA 6 will overshadow other games during its launch window.

This has become such a problem that major AAA studios have straight-up delayed their games just to avoid competing with the new Grand Theft Auto title. In fact, Hideo Kojima himself recently admitted that Death Stranding 2 was launched months early for this reason.

With GTA 6 launching in November 2026, it now falls directly into the potential release window of the next Pokémon games. So this begs the question: Could Pokémon Gen 10 now get pushed back because of GTA 6?

Rumored Pokémon Gen 10 Release Date

To be clear, Pokémon Gen 10 does not yet have a release date or launch window. While the leaked documents show Pokémon Wind & Wave launching in 2026, this could be outdated information. Specifically, the documents that leaked online were from a few years back. However, there are a lot of reasons that people believe Gen 10 is likely to launch in 2026.

Historically, new Pokémon generations arrive every three years:

• Sun & Moon (Gen 7) launched in 2016
• Sword & Shield (Gen 8) launched in 2019
• Scarlet & Violet (Gen 9) launched in 2022

By next year, we will be going on four years since Gen 9 was released, the longest break between generations to date. The delay is rumored to be due to COVID lockdowns impacting development. So it would be pretty surprising if Pokémon Gen 10 doesn’t come out in 2026, given how long it’s been since the last generation launched. 

Looking at all previous Gen projects, Game Freak also likes to release them in late November. Going back to Sun and Moon, the last three Gen games have specifically launched between November 16 and November 18 of their respective years. So yeah, this falls directly in line with GTA 6’s delayed release date of November 19, 2026.

Pokémon’s 30th Anniversary Makes 2026 Critical for Gen 10

The other factor here is that Game Freak is celebrating Pokémon’s 30th anniversary in 2026. From a marketing perspective, it would be absolutely insane not to launch Pokémon Gen 10 during such a pivotal milestone for the franchise. I honestly would find it shocking if they skipped a Gen game during this important year.

Given that Gen 10 has now been in development longer than previous games, we could even see the RPG release earlier than expected. While I don’t think it would be anything drastic, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Pokémon Wind & Wave gets announced for October 2026 instead. This would at least give it room to breathe before the release of GTA 6.

Then again, maybe Nintendo doesn’t even fear Grand Theft Auto. As crazy as that sounds, the Pokémon franchise literally prints money at this point. And the Switch 2 has a very different player base than that of Rockstar Games’ community.

Still, with GTA 6 being one of the most anticipated and hyped games of all time, it’s hard not to believe that it would still have some impact on Pokémon should the two games release at the same time.