GTA 6: Eight Years, a Doubled Team and Two Delays Explained

Bloomberg and Rockstar lay out why GTA 6 took eight years: Red Dead 2, the pandemic, a staff of 4,711 and two delays.

Rockstar has opened up, through a long Bloomberg report by Jason Schreier, about how GTA 6 was made: roughly eight years of work, a slow start caused by Red Dead Redemption 2, a team that nearly doubled in size and two delays that now have an explanation. The launch is still set for November 19, 2026.

GTA 6 and the eight years that were never a straight line

After GTA V (2013), Rockstar did not jump straight into the sequel. According to the report, the plan was to develop GTA 6 and Red Dead Redemption 2 side by side, but the western kept growing. Development lead Rob Nelson ended up pulling in most of the studio, senior leadership included, so GTA 6 was pushed back by several years. It only became the main focus once RDR 2 was out.

The 2020 pandemic added to the pile: Schreier estimates it cost at least another year. Nelson also described a "dark period" when the vision for the game was still up in the air.

A word of caution: the sources don't fully agree on when real work began. Some outlets say 2015, confirmed by Rockstar. SVG places the Project Americas codename around 2014, and one headline claims serious building didn't start until 2019. The only firm number is the round eight years.

A nearly doubled team

In 2018 Rockstar had 2,441 employees across 12 offices. Today it has 4,711, according to Bloomberg. Polygon notes the hiring comes after the criticism over crunch on RDR 2. More people means more scope, but SVG points out the flip side: communication between studios slows down and every change of direction costs more.

Dan Houser's exit also mattered. Since then, Nelson, Phil Hooker and Aaron Garbut share head-of-development duties, an arrangement SVG suggests may have caused some indecision. That is the outlet's reading, not a Rockstar statement.

The delays, explained: pedestrians and a couple

GTA 6 revolves around Jason and Lucia, and letting them do almost everything together meant building complex AI systems, "the traditional kind, not ChatGPT," as the report puts it. After the first official reveal in 2023, leadership realized that NPCs with their own behavior would take far more time and people than planned. Nelson sums it up: "The projections they were giving us were horrifying."

Hooker explained the call to move the date: once it was clear some areas wouldn't make it, they chose to delay. His words: "We could hit that schedule, but it won't be the game we want to make." The game went from 2025 to May 2026 and then to November 19, 2026.

On the budget, Rockstar gave no figure. Publishing head Jennifer Kolbe shot down the rumor that it topped 1.5 billion dollars, though Schreier still considers it the most expensive game ever made. For more on scope, see the map and the protagonists.

The main source for this piece is SVG, which summarizes the Bloomberg report, cross-checked against Polygon.

What we still don't know

Bloomberg doesn't touch the story or the online component. Nothing new on other platforms, and no guarantee that November 19 is final: SVG calls it a safe bet, but that's its opinion, not a Rockstar commitment. Four weeks left to find out.