Rockstar Explains Why It Took Over 8 Years to Make GTA 6, Says It Will Make Its Next Game Faster

Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to be a landmark release in video game history when it releases next month. Expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time, the open world crime title has been in the making for over eight years. It has been 13 years since the Grand Theft Auto 5 released—the biggest gap between two successive Grand Theft Auto games. But developer Rockstar Games has said its next game won't take as long.

The studio told this, among other details about the development of Grand Theft Auto 6, to Bloomberg in a wide-ranging story covering the making of the game. Speaking to the publication, the studio detailed the development timeline for GTA 6, the delays, and the scope of the hotly anticipated title.

Rockstar went on multiple “research” trips to Miami, Florida, visiting nightclubs, beaches, criminal dens, among other places to decide the look of the game. For instance, the studio scouted multiple nightclubs to help them design realistic lighting that matches the music and NPCs that are individually scripted and animated.

The developer confirmed that Grand Theft Auto 6 has been in development for over eight years. In that time, Rockstar has grown twice as big in size—from 2,441 employees in 2018 when Red Dead Redemption 2 released to 4,711 workers across 12 offices today.

Rockstar also touched upon the budget of the gargantuan game. Several industry insiders have estimated GTA 6's production budget to be upwards of $1 billion. The studio did not outright confirm a number, but it told Bloomberg that the game was not more expensive than the Burj Khalifa, the Dubai skyscraper that cost $1.5 billion to build.

Rockstar Will Make Its Next Game Faster

But the time spent developing GTA 6 will help Rockstar complete its next title at a much faster pace. The studio said that the game and its systems would serve as a blueprint for its future projects, adding that its next game would not take another eight years to make.

“The engine, the tools and the team we've built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly,” said Phil Hooker, who serves as co-head of development at Rockstar alongside Rob Nelson and Aaron Garbut. “I feel confident that we can build on top of this and go more sideways than upwards to build more compelling content.”

“We foundationally changed a lot of stuff on this project. But now it's done, and we're not going to rip it apart,” Garbut added.

Rockstar has not confirmed its next release after Grand Theft Auto 6. The studio has alternated between Red Dead Redemption and GTA games since it released Grand Theft Auto 5 in 2013. Rockstar is confirmed to publish remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2, currently in development at Remedy Entertainment.

The three heads of development at the studio also confirmed that GTA 6 was much larger in scope in its early stages of development. Around 2015, when Rockstar staff first visited Miami for a research trip, the title was codenamed “Project Americas”. The plan was to include a massive map featuring regions across both North and South America. The scope of the game was later narrowed down to Miami-inspired Vice City and its surrounding regions.

GTA 6 Delays

GTA 6 was pushed back when Rockstar decided to focus on the development of Red Dead Redemption 2. Following the game's release in 2018, the studio began work on the next Grand Theft Auto in earnest, and by 2019 it had outlined the story of Jason and Lucia, GTA 6's crime couple protagonists.

The Covid-19 pandemic delayed the game further, and Rockstar also avoided “crunching”—the practice of working overtime—with Grand Theft Auto 6. The game was further delayed twice after the first trailer released in 2023, promising launch in 2025. GTA 6 was pushed back from its planned fall 2025 release window to May 26, 2026, before finalising its current launch date of November 19, 2026.

According to Rockstar's head of publishing, Jennifer Kolbe, the second delay left Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Rockstar's parent company Take-Two, baffled. “I think he said, ‘You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding,'” Kolbe told Bloomberg.

The wait is almost over, and Grand Theft Auto 6 is just over a month away. It is unlikely to be delayed any further. GTA 6 launches November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.