The world stood still on May 2 for “Grand Theft Auto” fans.

People across the world lamented the news that came from Rockstar Games that the upcoming and highly anticipated next installment in their ever-popular series, “Grand Theft Auto VI,” will not release this fall as we all were originally told.

The game is now set to launch over a year from now on May 26, 2026, the day after Memorial Day in the United States.

In a statement released on Rockstar’s website, the game developer said, “We are very sorry that this is later than you expected. The interest and excitement surrounding a new Grand Theft Auto has been truly humbling for our entire team. We want to thank you for your support and your patience as we work to finish the game.”

And yes, people were disappointed. How couldn’t they be?

By the time it comes out next year, “GTA6” will have been in development for over 13 years and rumored to be one of the most expensive video games ever made.

The statement continues, “With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations, and Grand Theft Auto VI is no exception. We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.”

And that, dear readers, is exactly my point — if waiting a whole calendar year is the only way to guarantee that one of the most anticipated games in history doesn’t turn out to be an incomplete mess, well, then we wait.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times over the past several years major games have ended up being panned critically at launch because they were rushed out to meet an arbitrary deadline instead of putting in the extra elbow grease.

The latest installments in the mainline “Pokemon” franchise, “Pokemon: Scarlet” and “Pokemon: Violet,” came to market a broken mess with several performance and graphical issues and turned off many long-time players, including myself, because they rushed their product out the door because putting out a high-quality game wasn’t as important as making sure it came out before the newest anime series.

Rockstar doesn’t have to worry about beating a television series to store shelves, but that doesn’t mean that delaying “GTA6” doesn’t still leave them between a rock and a hard place. They did the right thing delaying if it means they’ll be able to use the next year to work out major bugs or even possibly come up with new content to sneak in (Personally, I would really like to see us receive some story DLC this time around, instead of copious updates to “GTA: Online”), but now they have to deliver on it.

If “Grand Theft Auto VI” releases next May in a state that is less than near-perfect, we can expect that fans will be just as ruthless as they were with “Cyberpunk 2077,” “No Man’s Sky,” “Fallout 76” or “Assassin’s Creed: Unity.”

However, if the longevity of “Grand Theft Auto” as a franchise through the years has shown us anything, it’s that “GTA6” will more than likely be well worth the wait.