Rockstar Video games has more than doubled its workforce to develop Grand Theft Auto 6, and is adamant that it won’t take one other eight years to full its next title.
In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg, Rockstar senior management stated that when Crimson Lifeless Redemption 2 launched in 2018, the studio had 2,441 workers.
By 2026, Rockstar employed 4,711 workers throughout 12 places of work. Of those, 4,020 work in growth and QA, whereas 690 are in publishing.
Rockstar’s management said that future video games will be developed more shortly, as GTA 6 “is a basis upon which they will construct new content material at a sooner tempo.”
“The engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this mission will allow us to do things more shortly,” stated co-head of growth Phil Hooker. “I really feel assured that we will construct on high of this and go more sideways than upwards to construct more compelling content material.”
GTA 6 was first introduced in 2023 with a deliberate 2025 launch. The launch was postponed to Might 26, 2026, and later rescheduled to its present date, November 19.
Rockstar’s head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe recalled informing Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick about each delays. “I feel he stated, ‘You are kidding. Please inform me you are kidding.’ However as soon as we talked by why, he acquired it.”
“And I feel we’re actually fortunate that he’s as cheap as he’s, as a result of lots of people would say, ‘You’d simply higher determine how to ship it.’ And we have now been actually, actually fortunate that we have now not discovered ourselves in that place, as a result of that occurs to a number of groups, and we’ve all performed these video games. It isn’t nice.”
Zelnick beforehand advised GamesIndustry.biz that he wasn’t “in the least” bit nervous about the affect that delays may have on the enterprise.
“As you recognize, sometimes throughout our total firm, together with 2K and our cell enterprise, at instances more time is required to polish a title to be sure that it is launched in its absolute best kind. And naturally it will launch in the identical fiscal yr as the prior date.”
“At the finish of the day it is our duty to do the proper factor for our shoppers, and meaning delivering the absolute best leisure expertise.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the matter of leaks was addressed. Rockstar was hit with its first set of leaks in September 2022, which have been attributable to a “community intrusion” and resulted in 90 in-development video clips of the game being shared.
“It looks like any person’s wading by your soiled washing. It is like they’re inside your head,” stated Rockstar North co-head Aaron Garbut. “You see your early work on the market. No one’s ever supposed to see that. It is actually weirdly invasive. And so it is fairly laborious to cope with on an emotional stage.”
Safety at Rockstar was heightened because of this, main to the elimination of distant work in April 2024. “The concept we might have the game in that many environments is one thing that I feel the safety team wouldn’t love,” stated Kolbe.
“I feel if we didn’t have a game that folks needed to steal as a lot, perhaps it will be a better dialog.”
The developer is at the moment addressing one other set of leaks from a hacker group that seems to possess a construct of the game. The group started circulating footage in August.
Earlier this week, the group launched extra footage and threatened to leak the full construct, together with the story mode, if Rockstar’s mother or father firm, Take-Two Interactive, doesn’t adjust to its calls for.