Grand Theft Auto VI took longer to make than anything Rockstar has released, and the people who built it have been unusually open about why. Over more than eight years the project grew from a research trip to Miami into a game built by nearly five thousand people, with a historic leak, two public delays and a labour dispute on the way to its launch on November 19, 2026.
Development At A Glance
- 2015: First Miami research trip; the project is code-named Project Americas
- Late 2018 to 2019: Full production begins after Red Dead Redemption 2; the Jason and Lucia story is set by the end of 2019
- September 2022: Around 90 in-progress videos leak online
- December 2023: Trailer 1 announces 2025
- May 2 and November 6, 2025: Delays to May 26, 2026 and then November 19, 2026
- August to November 2026: Extended Look, launch trailer, pre-load and release
Where It Started
Rockstar began sketching a new Grand Theft Auto soon after GTA V shipped in 2013, but the first concrete step came in 2015, when Rob Nelson and a group of senior staff flew to Miami. They rode with police and photographed the city from helicopters. The project was code-named Project Americas because the early plan covered large parts of North and South America, a scope later trimmed to Miami and its surroundings, the real basis for Vice City and the state of Leonida.
The plan to build it alongside Red Dead Redemption 2 did not survive. As the western grew, Nelson decided most of the company had to help finish it, and GTA VI slipped back by several years. Full production only picked up after October 2018, and by the end of 2019 the basic story of Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos was settled.
Three People At The Top
Several senior figures left after Red Dead Redemption 2, among them co-founder and lead writer Dan Houser, and rather than appoint one director, Rockstar gave the title of head of development to three people: Rob Nelson, Phil Hooker and Aaron Garbut. Nelson admits the arrangement invites complaints about indecision, and he calls the stretch when the overall picture was still unclear “a dark period”. By 2022 enough of the game existed that staff could see where it was heading.
Growing Instead Of Crunching
Red Dead Redemption 2 was finished with months of 60-hour weeks for some teams, and head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe says the company agreed afterwards not to do it that way again. For GTA VI the answer was scale. Rockstar grew from 2,441 employees in 2018 to 4,711 by August 2026 across twelve offices, and opened a Los Angeles studio dedicated to non-playable characters after Nelson called the projections for how many NPCs the game needed “horrifying”.
Stricter scheduling, paid time off for extra hours and additional pay in some cases came with the hiring. Kolbe does not claim it was spotless. It has not been perfect, she says, but it is better than Red Dead 2 was.
The 2022 Leak And What Followed
Rockstar confirmed the game was in active development on February 4, 2022. Seven months later an intruder reached the company’s internal Slack and posted around 90 videos of early footage, showing Vice City, test gameplay and rough scenes with Lucia and Jason. Rockstar confirmed the material was real, and a British teenager linked to the Lapsus$ group was later convicted over the breach.
The leak changed how the studio works. By 2024 everyone was back in the office five days a week, and GTA VI developers lost remote access to servers and tools entirely, which meant taking vacation days for childcare or other emergencies. Rockstar has since said it even put privacy film on office windows after drones were used to photograph screens inside.
Two Trailers And Two Delays
The first trailer arrived in December 2023, set a YouTube record with more than 90 million views in a day and closed on a single word: 2025. Leadership says it believed that date at the time, while people on the floor were more sceptical. On May 2, 2025 Rockstar moved the game to May 26, 2026, following up four days later with the second trailer and a large batch of screenshots.
The second delay, announced November 6, 2025, pushed the date to November 19, 2026. Kolbe was the one who had to phone Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick both times, and she recalls his reaction to the second call as “You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.” Hooker put it plainly: the team could have hit the date, but it would not have been the game they wanted to make.
Trouble On The Last Lap
On October 30, 2025 Rockstar dismissed 34 employees in the UK and Canada, 31 of them members of the IWGB union. The company says they were fired for sharing confidential information about unreleased games on a Discord server, while the union calls it union busting. An employment tribunal in Glasgow heard the case through autumn 2026, with closing submissions scheduled for the week before launch.
Then came a second leak. In the week before the official gameplay reveal, unreleased clips spread online daily, and on August 26, 2026 Rockstar called the situation “heartbreaking” for the team, apologised for how long everything had taken and described the game as “nearly there”. Garbut compared it to someone wading through your dirty washing.
Finished, Finally
The Extended Look followed on August 27, 2026, a 26-minute gameplay presentation that premiered on Netflix. Pre-orders had opened on June 25. The launch trailer landed on October 15, and on November 3 Rockstar confirmed pre-loading from November 10, with a download of up to 212 GB, ahead of the release at midnight local time on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Rockstar has not said what the game cost. Kolbe has dismissed the claim that it ran past the $1.5 billion spent on the Burj Khalifa, though the time and headcount involved make it almost certainly the most expensive game ever built. The leaders also say the next project will not take another eight years. Garbut says the studio “foundationally changed a lot of stuff” this time and will not rip it apart again.
Hooker’s own late review sums up what those years bought. He sat down to check a story mission, got sidetracked by a convenience store, a robbery and a police chase, and two hours later still had not reached it. “If we stick to our guns on this,” he said, “we have something really special.”
Frequently Asked Questions
How long was GTA 6 in development?
Rockstar’s leaders put it at more than eight years, counting from the 2015 Miami research trip. Early concept work dates back to 2014, but full production only began after Red Dead Redemption 2 shipped in late 2018.
Why was GTA 6 delayed twice?
According to the heads of development there was no single crisis, just a huge number of moving parts that did not come together on schedule. Phil Hooker said the team could have hit the original date, but it would not have been the game they wanted to make.
Who directed GTA 6?
Nobody alone. Rob Nelson, Phil Hooker and Aaron Garbut shared the title of head of development after Dan Houser and other senior staff left following Red Dead Redemption 2.
How much did GTA 6 cost to make?
Rockstar has not disclosed a figure. Jennifer Kolbe has denied it cost more than the $1.5 billion Burj Khalifa, but the eight-year schedule and a workforce of over 4,700 make a budget above $1 billion very likely.
Did Rockstar crunch on GTA 6?
Less than on Red Dead Redemption 2, according to Kolbe. The studio hired more people, tightened scheduling and offered paid time off and extra pay for additional hours, while admitting the process was not perfect.
