Inside the Making of GTA 6: What Bloomberg Learned at Rockstar

On October 14, Bloomberg published the most detailed look yet at how GTA 6 was made. Reporter Jason Schreier spent time at Rockstar North in late September, while the team was fixing bugs before launch, and spoke with the game's three development leads, Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker, as well as head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe. The story is still being picked apart this week, so here is what matters.

This is reporting from a trusted journalist with Rockstar on the record, but it isn't an official Rockstar announcement, so we mark it as likely.

Why was GTA 6 delayed twice?

There was no single disaster, according to Rockstar's leads. Lots of parts of the game moved at different speeds, and too many of them fell behind at once.

• The first delay, to May 2026, came when the development team told Kolbe the game needed more time. She called Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick to move it.
• The second delay, to November 19, came a few months later. Kolbe says Zelnick's first reaction to that call was "You're kidding", before he agreed that the extra time was worth it.
• Hooker said the team could have hit the earlier date, but the game wouldn't have been the one they wanted to ship.

The studio built just for NPCs

The biggest single problem was the people who fill the world. When Rockstar worked out how many NPCs it needed to write, voice and animate, Nelson described the projections as "horrifying". The studio simply didn't have enough people to make that many believable characters.

Its answer was a new team in Los Angeles made up of writers, producers and directors whose only job is non-player characters. If the pedestrians in Vice City feel more alive than in any GTA before, this is why.

Rockstar nearly doubled in size

Bloomberg reports that Rockstar had 2,441 employees when Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in 2018. It now has 4,711 across 12 offices, most of them in development or testing. Schreier notes that growing that fast also made it harder for departments to talk to each other.

How much did GTA 6 cost?

Rockstar didn't give a number. Kolbe did deny the popular rumor that the budget topped $1.5 billion. Bloomberg still calls GTA 6 almost certainly the most expensive game ever made.

Did Rockstar crunch on GTA 6?

After the 60-hour weeks reported during Red Dead Redemption 2, Kolbe says she told staff the game would not be finished by crunching. Rockstar changed how it plans schedules and added paid time off for extra hours worked, sometimes with extra pay. Kolbe admits it hasn't been perfect and some teams still worked long hours, but says it is better than Red Dead 2 was.

The feature also covers harder topics: Rockstar's five-days-a-week office rule from 2024, and the 34 staff it fired in 2025, most of them involved in forming a union. Rockstar says they leaked confidential information; the former staff say the firings were meant to stop the union. That case is still before an employment tribunal in Glasgow, and Kolbe told Bloomberg Rockstar would recognise a union if its staff want one.

What comes next?

Rockstar's leads said they plan to build on the tools and technology made for GTA 6 rather than start over, so the next game should take less time. No new project was announced.

For the latest on launch, see our release date page and the launch day checklist.