Rockstar on GTA 6's long road: Project Americas, two delays, and why the next game won't take eight years
In a Bloomberg feature published today, Rockstar's leaders talk on the record for the first time about how GTA 6 was made: the continent-sized version that was cut, the two delays, a team that doubled, and what comes after.
Rockstar has broken its silence on how Grand Theft Auto VI was made. In a long Bloomberg feature by Jason Schreier published on October 14, 2026, the studio's heads of development Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker, head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe and Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick speak on the record about the game that launches on November 19. Nothing about the release date changes, and the piece contains no story spoilers. What it does give is the first official account of why the game took this long, and a clear signal about what Rockstar does next.
It started as "Project Americas"
The game began under the working title Project Americas, and the original idea was a map spanning large parts of North and South America. That was eventually cut down to the version we know: Vice City and the state of Leonida around it. Several outlets reading the feature say Rockstar does not spell out a single reason, but the shape of the problem is clear from the rest of the piece: a continent would have multiplied everything that already made the smaller game hard to finish. See the map page for what Leonida looks like now.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is part of the timeline too. GTA 6 was planned alongside it, and as RDR2 grew it pulled in most of the company, including senior leadership, which pushed GTA 6 back by years. By 2019 the core of the game and the two-protagonist design around Jason and Lucia were in place; the pandemic and working from home then made the fine detail slower to finish.
Two delays, one phone call each
The timeline reported in the feature matches what fans lived through. The game was revealed in December 2023 with a 2025 window. In May 2025 it moved to May 26, 2026, and a few months later to November 19, 2026. Nelson is described as the one who concluded, as the first date approached, that the team needed more time, and Kolbe was the one who had to ask Zelnick for it, twice. Kolbe's recollection of his first reaction, as reported by Kotaku, was "Please tell me you're kidding." Once the reasons were explained he agreed, and Zelnick now frames the extra months as an investment that lets the game reach what it is capable of.
A company twice the size
The numbers put the scale in perspective. Rockstar had 2,441 employees when RDR2 launched in 2018; it now has 4,711 across twelve offices, roughly 4,020 in development and QA and 690 in publishing. When the team projected how many characters the game would need written and animated, Nelson's word for the figure was "horrifying", and Rockstar's answer was to open a new Los Angeles division of writers, producers and directors dedicated to the people who populate the world.
On money, the feature does not get a figure out of Rockstar. Kolbe rejects the rumour that the game cost more than about $1.5 billion; Bloomberg's own estimate is that it still likely cost well above what other publishers consider a ceiling. Treat any exact number you see as a guess.
The hack, the office, and crunch
Garbut describes the September 2022 breach, when early development clips were stolen and posted, as unusually invasive and emotionally hard for the team. Rockstar ended remote work in April 2024 as security tightened. Kolbe says the five-day office policy will be reviewed after launch but does not expect it to change much, because the security team is not keen on the game living on that many home machines. The feature also reports that Rockstar has introduced measures to limit overtime, while acknowledging that crunch has not been eliminated.
The next game will not take eight years
The line most people will remember is Hooker's. The engine, tools and team built for GTA 6 are meant to be reused rather than rebuilt, so the next project should move faster and expand sideways from what exists instead of starting a new foundation. Garbut makes the same point: they rebuilt a great deal this time and do not intend to tear it apart again. No next game has been announced, and nothing in the feature suggests one before GTA 6 and its online side are out the door.
For the launch itself, the unlock times, pre-load date and edition contents are unchanged and collected on our launch guide.
Sources: Bloomberg: Inside the Making of Grand Theft Auto 6 · Kotaku · GameSpot · GameSpot · Notebookcheck
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