Over the past week, we clarified that SAG-AFTRA did not claim that their strike for voice actors against video game companies would delay Grand Theft Auto 6. We received official word after that.
Kotaku was told by a spokesperson for the video game companies who were the subject of the strike that Grand Theft Auto 6 was not affected by the strike at all. They also got clarification that all video games that were in development before September 2023 are exempted from the strike.
Although we referred to this strike as owned by SAG-AFTRA, it’s not necessarily one that was initiated by management. Rather, the voice actors themselves talked to the organization to get approval for the strike, and with the organization’s help, the strike could be bigger, and have their backing, than it would have been if they tried it on their own.
It’s actually a bit of a turnaround for SAG-AFTRA, who was criticized after striking a deal with an AI company called Tech Studios. While that deal is intended to protect actor’s rights, it was made without consultation from the union members themselves. One could say making a deal wasn’t even the right move in the first place. But if the members wanted to discuss the terms under which they would make such an agreement, they did not get a chance to.
Now, while there are no clearly announced games that we know of that were affected by the strike, we can make some intelligent guesses. EA, Take-Two Interactive, and Activision Blizzard are three of the companies whose actors just held a strike. So, we can reasonably guess that those companies’ annualized games are affected by the strike.
Examples of those games we know are coming would be EA College Football 26, EA Sports FC 26, NBA 2K26, WWE 2K26, and future Call of Duty games. While Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 took over five years to make, most of the games take three years in development. So it’s most likely the Call of Duty game set to release in 2028 is affected, though it’s possible the 2027 Call of Duty is also affected.
If not Grand Theft Auto 6, we wouldn’t know for now what Take-Two Interactive game could be affected. We know a Borderlands game is in development, but that may have already been in development earlier. And the most likely situation, if this strike goes on for too long, like the 2016 strike, is that certain projects will be cancelled or go into incubation, and the companies will never even announce them.
We are sure we don’t even have to explain the why of this, but we do hope the video game companies and actors settle on a deal sooner rather than later, and that these are on terms that the workers need to keep on making a living.
