GTA 6 Was Originally Far Bigger as Rockstar Reveals Why Development Took More Than Eight Years

Grand Theft Auto VI was once envisioned as a dramatically larger game spanning major areas of both North and South America, before Rockstar Games scaled the project back to Vice City and the surrounding state of Leonida. That is one of the biggest revelations from a new Bloomberg Businessweek investigation published on October 14, 2026, offering an unusually detailed look inside the development of the most anticipated game in Rockstar’s history.

Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier visited Rockstar North in Edinburgh in late September and interviewed senior developers about GTA 6’s lengthy production, the departures and leadership changes that reshaped the project, Rockstar’s efforts to reduce crunch, the company’s growing workforce, repeated leaks and the technical challenges behind building Leonida.

The report says development has stretched for more than eight years, with Rockstar growing from 2,441 employees when Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in 2018 to 4,711 employees across 12 offices. It also describes an early period when GTA 6 struggled to find a clear direction before eventually becoming the game Rockstar plans to release this November.

GTA 6’s Original “Project Americas” Was Much Bigger

One of the most significant confirmations concerns the long-rumored codename Project Americas.

According to Bloomberg’s report, GTA 6 was originally envisioned on a much larger geographic scale, with plans involving significant areas across North America and South America. Rockstar eventually abandoned that enormous scope and concentrated the game around Vice City and its surrounding regions.

That gives important context to one of the oldest GTA 6 rumors.

Reports about “Project Americas” circulated years before Rockstar formally revealed GTA 6, but the Bloomberg investigation indicates the idea was indeed part of the project’s early development rather than simply an internet invention.

The version launching in November is therefore not a smaller section cut from an otherwise completed continent-spanning game. It reflects a major evolution in Rockstar’s design priorities during production.

Red Dead Redemption 2 Delayed GTA 6’s Full Development

Part of the reason GTA 6 took so long goes back to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Rockstar initially hoped development on GTA 6 could progress while the company was simultaneously finishing its massive Western, according to Bloomberg. In practice, however, Red Dead Redemption 2 eventually demanded an enormous portion of Rockstar’s workforce and senior leadership.

That pushed GTA 6 further into the future.

The trade-off was that GTA 6 benefited from technologies and systems developed for Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly Rockstar’s increasingly sophisticated approach to NPCs, animation, environmental interaction and open-world simulation.

In other words, the eight-year-plus development timeline does not mean the current version of GTA 6 has been in uninterrupted full production with the same scope since 2018.

The project evolved considerably along the way.

GTA 6 Went Through a Difficult Early Period

Bloomberg describes an early phase of GTA 6 production marked by uncertainty over exactly what the game should become.

Developers debated the balance between realism and entertainment, how detailed seemingly ordinary interactions should be and how deeply players should interact with everyday objects and systems.

Some discussions reportedly went as granular as whether players should manually purchase beer or shop for individual sandwich ingredients.

Those examples do not mean either mechanic is confirmed for the final version of GTA 6. They illustrate the kinds of design debates occurring internally as Rockstar tried to establish how simulation-heavy the new game should be.

The report also says rapid company growth made communication more complicated, while the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted development and temporarily halted performance-capture work.

Some senior designers reportedly left during this period after becoming frustrated with the project’s progress.

GTA 6’s Leadership Changed After Dan Houser Left Rockstar

GTA 6 also developed through one of the biggest leadership changes in Rockstar’s history.

Dan Houser, Rockstar co-founder and longtime creative force behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, left the company in 2020.

Following those departures and organizational changes, GTA 6’s development leadership became more distributed, with senior figures including Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker taking major responsibilities across the project.

Bloomberg reports that some developers felt having multiple senior voices could lead to indecision or conflicting directions.

Rockstar’s leadership pushed back against the idea that such disagreements were inherently caused by the structure, arguing that similar creative conflicts can occur under a single director.

Rockstar Has Nearly Doubled Its Workforce Since Red Dead Redemption 2

The scale of GTA 6 is reflected in Rockstar itself.

Bloomberg reports that Rockstar employed 2,441 people around the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018.

Today, the company has approximately 4,711 employees operating across 12 offices.

That means Rockstar has nearly doubled in size while developing GTA 6.

The growth was necessary partly because of how much content Rockstar wanted inside Leonida.

Recent interviews had already revealed that one Los Angeles-based team works heavily on GTA 6’s pedestrians and open-world characters. Bloomberg’s report further illustrates how resource-intensive those systems became.

Rockstar Needed an Entire Los Angeles Operation to Help Build GTA 6’s NPCs

Creating Leonida’s population became such an enormous production challenge that Rockstar expanded its operations in Los Angeles with writers, producers and directors focused heavily on background characters and NPC content.

This helps explain why Rockstar’s recent GTA 6 previews have repeatedly emphasized pedestrians.

The studio does not want Vice City residents to function simply as interchangeable background characters.

Developers have created different physical builds, clothing, conversations, behaviors and reactions designed to make individual neighborhoods feel culturally distinct.

Previous Rockstar interviews have similarly described a Los Angeles operation largely dedicated to NPC behavior and dialogue.

Jason and Lucia Together Were a Major Technical Challenge

Another challenge involved GTA 6’s two protagonists.

Jason and Lucia are not simply two separate playable characters who occasionally meet during missions.

Rockstar wanted them to be able to spend significant amounts of time together in the open world, creating a technical and narrative problem the studio had not attempted at this scale before.

Bloomberg describes scenarios where the player can arrange for the pair to meet, spend time together, visit a gym, hold hands, rob stores and escape from police while continuously interacting and talking.

That system supports one of GTA 6’s defining differences from GTA V.

Rather than three protagonists connected primarily through crime, Jason and Lucia’s romantic relationship is at the center of the story.

Rockstar is attempting to combine GTA’s chaos and satire with some of the more emotional character storytelling the company developed in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Rockstar’s Research Went Far Beyond Taking Photos of Miami

Bloomberg also provides more detail about the real-world research behind Leonida.

Rockstar employees traveled repeatedly to South Florida, including trips where developers rode alongside police, photographed environments from helicopters and visited Miami nightlife venues to study everything from architecture to lighting.

The level of detail extends inside locations.

Rockstar art director Aaron Garbut explained that creating a nightclub is no longer simply a matter of spawning generic NPCs in differently colored shirts.

Characters, drinks, lighting, music and the way people occupy the environment all have to work together convincingly.

The result is one reason GTA 6 requires so many developers and specialized production teams.

A Small Traffic Accident Can Derail Hours of Gameplay

One anecdote from Phil Hooker illustrates the kind of emergent world Rockstar is trying to build.

During one testing session, Hooker intended to head toward a specific story mission.

Instead, a relatively minor traffic incident reportedly developed into a chain of unexpected events involving fights, theft, police attention, stolen vehicles and additional discoveries.

Around two hours later, he still had not reached the mission he originally intended to test.

It is an anecdotal example rather than a guarantee that every GTA 6 session will unfold that way.

But it illustrates Rockstar’s goal: the journey across Leonida should generate enough spontaneous situations that players can become distracted without deliberately choosing a side mission.

There Was No Single Reason GTA 6 Was Delayed Twice

Bloomberg also addresses one of the biggest questions surrounding the game: why it was delayed multiple times.

According to Rockstar leadership, there was no single catastrophic problem behind the delays.

Instead, numerous systems, features and pieces of content were simply taking longer than expected. Shipping earlier would have required Rockstar to compromise on parts of the game it wanted to finish properly.

GTA 6 was originally targeting a 2025 release before moving to May 2026 and eventually November 19, 2026.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was reportedly surprised by the second delay but accepted Rockstar’s reasoning after hearing why the additional development time was needed.

During Schreier’s late-September visit to Rockstar North, developers were heavily focused on bug fixing.

The article does not guarantee that another delay is impossible, and statements circulating online claiming Rockstar described November 19 merely as “achievable” appear to overstate what the Bloomberg feature itself says.

Rockstar’s official release date remains November 19, 2026.

Rockstar Says Crunch Has Improved, but It Has Not Completely Disappeared

Rockstar’s treatment of employees is another major focus of the Bloomberg investigation.

The company faced intense criticism following Red Dead Redemption 2 over reports of prolonged overtime and burnout.

For GTA 6, Rockstar says it implemented measures intended to reduce those conditions, including additional hiring, tighter production planning and compensation through time off or, in some circumstances, additional pay.

Employees interviewed by Bloomberg generally said conditions have improved compared with previous Rockstar productions.

However, the article does not claim overtime has disappeared completely.

Management acknowledges that some employees can still work excessive hours, particularly during demanding periods.

Rockstar Still Requires Five Days a Week in the Office

Remote work remains one of the more contentious issues inside the company.

Rockstar currently requires employees to work five days a week from its offices, with development tools restricted from remote access.

Management has cited both productivity and security concerns when defending that policy.

The issue became especially sensitive after subsequent GTA 6 leaks.

Some employees expressed frustration that they lost remote-working flexibility partly because of security concerns, yet significant unauthorized footage still escaped the company.

Rockstar leadership indicated the policy may be reconsidered after GTA 6 launches, although Bloomberg’s reporting suggests management remains skeptical of a conventional long-term hybrid system.

GTA 6 Leaks Have Taken a Personal Toll on Developers

The report also discusses Rockstar’s repeated leak problems.

The enormous 2022 GTA 6 breach exposed early development footage years before Rockstar was ready to show the game publicly.

Developers described that event to Bloomberg as emotionally invasive.

Another leak campaign in August 2026 further frustrated employees who had spent years working under increasingly restrictive security procedures.

This context is particularly notable following the newer CyberLeek releases that continued into October.

Bloomberg’s article does not identify who is responsible for those leaks.

Rockstar’s 34 Employee Firings Remain Disputed

Schreier also covers the ongoing employment dispute surrounding 34 Rockstar workers fired in October 2025.

Rockstar maintains that the employees were dismissed for sharing confidential company information.

The workers and the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) argue that Rockstar targeted employees involved in union organizing and have accused the company of union busting. Rockstar disputes that allegation.

Of the 34 dismissed workers, 31 were union members and three were not, according to legal reporting on the case.

The matter has proceeded through an employment tribunal in Glasgow.

Neither side’s version should currently be presented as a final legal finding.

Rockstar Rejects the Viral $1.5 Billion GTA 6 Budget Claim

Another longstanding GTA 6 rumor concerns its supposed development cost.

Online claims have repeatedly suggested GTA 6 has cost $1 billion, $1.5 billion or even $2 billion to produce.

Bloomberg reports that Rockstar rejected the particularly viral claim that GTA 6’s production budget exceeded the roughly $1.5 billion cost of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

Rockstar did not provide an actual development budget.

Schreier nevertheless assesses GTA 6 as almost certainly the most expensive video game ever produced given its enormous workforce, long development cycle and worldwide production structure.

That distinction matters: GTA 6 may very well be the most expensive game ever made, but there is still no confirmed public dollar figure.

Analysts Expect GTA 6 to Generate Billions — but Those Are Forecasts

The commercial expectations are equally enormous.

Bloomberg cites analyst projections suggesting GTA 6 could sell approximately 40 million copies and generate more than $3 billion during its first four months.

Those numbers are forecasts, not Rockstar or Take-Two sales guarantees.

No GTA 6 units have been sold to consumers yet because the game has not launched.

Still, the projections illustrate the financial pressure surrounding a release that Take-Two expects to become one of the biggest entertainment launches ever.

GTA 6’s Online Component Is Expected in 2027, but Rockstar Has Not Announced It

Bloomberg’s story also references GTA 6’s expected online component.

The report says multiplayer is expected next year, aligning with previous remarks from Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, who said after discussions with Rockstar that he expected another major audience surge when GTA 6 multiplayer launches in 2027.

However, this is not an official GTA Online 2 release announcement.

Rockstar has still not publicly revealed the final name, release date, structure or player count for GTA 6’s multiplayer component.

Until Rockstar announces those details itself, 2027 should be treated as reported timing, not a confirmed launch date.

Rockstar Says Its Next Release Should Not Take Another Eight Years

Perhaps the most consequential long-term comment comes from Rockstar’s leadership.

The studio sees GTA 6 not only as a finished game but as a technological foundation.

Phil Hooker said the engine, tools and team created during GTA 6’s production should allow Rockstar to work more quickly from this point forward. Aaron Garbut similarly said the company fundamentally rebuilt many systems during this project, but does not now intend to tear them apart and start again.

Rockstar leadership therefore does not expect its next major release to require another eight-year production cycle.

That is not an announcement of GTA 7, Red Dead Redemption 3 or any other specific project.

It is a statement about the development infrastructure Rockstar now possesses after spending years building GTA 6.

Bloomberg’s Feature Includes Two New Official GTA 6 Screenshots

Rockstar also supplied Bloomberg with two new official GTA 6 screenshots for Schreier’s feature.

One shows Jason and Lucia covered in mud beside an off-road vehicle, apparently connected to the dirt-racing culture Rockstar has previously shown in Leonida.

The second shows the rear of a sports car driving along Ocean Drive at sunset, with neon signs illuminated and a police helicopter flying overhead.

The Businessweek feature also includes two illustrations created by Viktor Hachmang.

These screenshots are official material supplied by Rockstar rather than images taken from the recent unauthorized leaks.

Bloomberg’s Report Explains Why GTA 6 Became an Eight-Year Project

The central takeaway from Schreier’s investigation is that GTA 6’s long development cannot be reduced to one explanation.

Red Dead Redemption 2 consumed years of Rockstar’s attention.

Project Americas was originally too ambitious.

Leadership changed.

The company nearly doubled in size.

COVID disrupted production.

Rockstar rebuilt significant parts of its technology.

Developers wrestled with how far to push realism.

NPC production grew into a massive operation.

At the same time, Rockstar was attempting to change a workplace culture heavily criticized during previous releases.

All of those factors contributed to GTA 6 becoming an eight-plus-year undertaking.

Rockstar now believes the engine, production pipeline and workforce created for GTA 6 can prevent its next major project from taking nearly as long.

For a company famous for revealing very little about how its games are made, Bloomberg’s report provides one of the clearest looks yet behind the walls of Rockstar North.