GTA 6’s Long Road to Launch: Key Takeaways from Bloomberg’s Report

On October 14, Bloomberg published an extensive report by Jason Schreier on the making of GTA 6. One of the best-known journalists covering the games industry, Schreier visited Rockstar North in Edinburgh in late September and spoke with the company’s leaders. They discussed GTA 6’s development, the uncertainty in the early stages, the reasons for its delays, and changes within Rockstar itself.

GTA 6’s development took longer partly because Rockstar revised its original plans and shifted resources toward finishing RDR2. Schreier describes several overlapping challenges, so the idea that Rockstar spent years simply executing a clear plan does not reflect what actually happened.

The first research trip to Miami took place back in 2015, when Project Americas (GTA 6’s early codename) was intended to include large areas of North and South America. Those plans were later scaled back, while completing Red Dead Redemption 2 required bringing in most of Rockstar. The schedule for the next GTA was pushed back several years.

The way the company organized its work changed too. Previously, different offices could develop several games in parallel; now, most of the company focused on one major project. This approach allows Rockstar to put more resources behind each release, but also helps explain the long gaps between them.

By the end of 2019, the outline of Jason and Lucia’s story had taken shape. Having a plot, however, did not mean the developers had settled every other aspect of the game. Rob Nelson recalls a “dark period” when the overall vision remained unclear. The pandemic then halted work at the performance-capture studios, while rapid team growth made communication between departments more difficult.

After Dan Houser and other key employees left, Nelson, Aaron Garbut, and Phil Hooker took charge of development. Some employees complained about slow decision-making and conflicting ideas. Nelson acknowledges that he was aware of those complaints, though he believes similar problems can arise with a single game director.

In earlier interviews, Rockstar had already explained that it was willing to sacrifice realism for convenience. Bloomberg’s report shows how difficult it was to find the right balance. The team’s leaders discussed even something as simple as buying beer in detail: should a bottle appear instantly in the protagonist’s hand, or should players have to take it from the refrigerator, bring it to the counter, and pay?

This is a fascinating game design problem. The more detailed the world becomes, the more noticeable the shortcuts in everyday actions are. But turning every purchase into a mandatory sequence of steps risks making authenticity feel like a chore. For players, the value of that detail depends on whether it creates interesting situations or simply demands more button presses.

Making Jason and Lucia’s interactions work proved difficult too. We previously covered how they can go for walks, work out, and commit crimes together in our article on IGN’s extensive interview with Rockstar. In Bloomberg’s report, Nelson explains that this required sophisticated game AI. The team’s leaders questioned whether they should take on that much work, but ultimately decided that the couple’s relationship needed to carry over into the open world.

Schreier’s report reinforces an impression I had from other GTA 6 interviews and previews: interactions between the game’s systems should make the open world considerably more dynamic. Hooker offers a telling example. During testing, he hit another car, setting off a chain of conflicts, thefts, and police chases that distracted him from a story mission for two hours. The key here is how a chance mishap can turn into an extended adventure without a preselected mission.

Since RDR2’s release, Rockstar’s workforce has grown from 2,441 to 4,711 employees across 12 offices. But expanding the team does not automatically guarantee that every part of the game will be ready on time. According to the company’s leaders, the delays resulted from numerous tasks that were not progressing at the pace they needed.

NPCs provide one concrete example. When Rockstar assessed how many characters it needed to write and animate, it realized it lacked the capacity to handle the workload. The company built a dedicated studio in Los Angeles with writers, producers, and directors specifically for that work. The team had previously been mentioned in LOVE Magazine.

GTA 6’s delays cannot be attributed to a single problem. The developers describe a project whose different parts were progressing at different speeds. Hooker says an earlier release was possible, but the result would not have matched the team’s vision.

One of the report’s major themes is Rockstar’s effort to rethink its working practices after RDR2. Jennifer Kolbe, the company’s head of publishing, says Rockstar did not want to finish another game through prolonged overtime. To address this, it expanded its workforce, revised scheduling, and introduced paid time off in return for extra hours worked, with additional pay in some cases.

That does not mean crunch disappeared entirely. Kolbe acknowledges that individual employees’ experiences may have differed. Meanwhile, Schreier, who has spoken with dozens of Rockstar employees over the past few years, reports largely positive assessments of the changes. There are therefore grounds to recognize improvements, though it would be premature to call the problem solved.

Rockstar’s security measures introduced new restrictions. By 2024, the company required employees to work in the office five days a week and blocked access to its tools from home. This also affected people who needed to stay home to care for their children. Another major leak in August 2026 prompted questions within the company about the effectiveness of that approach.

Schreier separately examines the dismissal of 34 employees in 2025. Most had been involved in efforts to form a union. They see the dismissals as an attempt to prevent them from organizing, while Rockstar says the employees were fired for disclosing confidential information. At the time of publication, the dispute was still before an employment tribunal.

This part of the report matters when assessing how Rockstar has changed. Better scheduling and overtime compensation do not resolve questions about other management decisions. Discussing the cost of making GTA 6 also means considering how the company treats the employees whose work brings such an ambitious game to life.

Schreier writes that November 19 does appear to be GTA 6’s actual release date. He visited Rockstar North in late September, when employees were fixing bugs ahead of launch. Still, he notes that in the games industry, you can never be completely certain until the game is running on your machine.

Rockstar’s leaders are already looking ahead, though, and expect the wait for their next release to be shorter than another eight years. According to Hooker, the technology, tools, and team built during GTA 6’s development will allow them to create new content more quickly. Garbut adds that the studio plans to build on its existing technical foundations rather than overhaul them again.

The gameplay demonstration, interviews, and previews have already given us a good idea of what Rockstar wants players to be able to do in GTA 6. Schreier’s report explains why delivering those features proved so difficult. Still, many had already assumed that developing a game this ambitious would be no easy task. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.

Mostly details about development: the early plans for Project Americas, a period of uncertainty, difficulties handling the workload, delays, and changes within Rockstar. Some gameplay mechanics had already been discussed in earlier interviews.

The article describes several factors: shifting resources to finish RDR2, establishing an overall vision for the game, the pandemic, and difficulties producing individual parts of the project. Rockstar’s leaders do not attribute all the delays to a single cause.

The report does not claim that. The company revised its scheduling and overtime compensation policies, and many employees viewed the changes positively. However, Kolbe acknowledges that individual employees’ experiences may have differed.

He writes that GTA 6 does appear set to release that day, but notes that complete certainty is impossible until the game is actually out.