Grand Theft Auto 5 delayed, launching Sept. 17

Grand Theft Auto 5 will be available Sept. 17 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, publisher Rockstar Games announced today.

Rockstar said last October that it planned to launch Grand Theft Auto 5 this spring. According to a press release announcing the new date, the company decided to push back the game "in order to allow additional development time."

In a post on the Rockstar Games website, the development team apologized for the delay.

"We know this is about four months later than originally planned and we know that this short delay will come as a disappointment to many of you, but, trust us, it will be worth the extra time," the team added. "[Grand Theft Auto 5] is a massively ambitious and complex game and it simply needs a little more polish to be of the standard we and, more importantly, you require."

You can check out the most recent Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer, which introduces the game's three protagonists, here. Grand Theft Auto 5 takes place in Los Santos, one of the three cities in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but Rockstar calls this version the biggest game world it has ever created — a world that allows for "more extreme" missions. Rockstar Games' Dan Houser said in November that the company decided to develop the game on current-generation consoles because the "mature" hardware lets the developers "go on to the next level."