With pre-orders finally live, it seems like Grand Theft Auto 6 is finally almost here after almost 13 years. And while Rockstar Games made Red Dead Redemption 2 during that stretch, this latest Grand Theft Auto game has taken quite some time to come out. Most successful franchises don’t have over a decade between releases.
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Figuring out what took so long is complicated since there are so many variables in game development, especially for titles like this that involve thousands upon thousands of people. Here are some of the factors that have made the wait for GTA 6 so lengthy.
But to start, one thing that likely didn’t significantly lengthen development was the huge 2022 hack that saw countless materials from early versions of GTA 6 hit the internet. Rockstar said it didn’t anticipate any “long-term [effects] on the development” of GTA 6 in its statement following the news. While the true impacts haven’t been reported on, nothing has come out saying the opposite.
4) GTA 6‘s Size and Level of Detail
GTA 6’s size and scope are the most obvious reasons explaining its lengthy development cycle. Rockstar is known for its beefy games, which have only gotten bigger over the years. Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 were both massive and larger than their predecessors. According to various map comparisons, GTA 5’s map is around 75 square kilometers, whereas GTA 4’s map is about 16 square kilometers. Red Dead Redemption 2’s map is also around 75 square kilometers, and its predecessor was around 40 square kilometers. Rockstar has not released a full map of Leonida — its equivalent to Florida — and while some have tried to map out the space based on trailers and alleged leaks, it’s likely to be quite a big chunk of land (and sea). The alleged description of the game boasts as much, for what it’s worth.
Filling that space takes a ton of time, especially given how detail-oriented Rockstar is. And these spaces aren’t usually just crammed with “stuff,” either. As was the case in GTA 5 and RDR 2, GTA 5 will almost undoubtedly be stuffed with all sorts of details other studios can’t afford to put in their games. Perhaps alligators can roam the streets and attack pedestrians. Maybe players can partake in the gig economy for some extra cash. A certain house in the middle of the sticks could have an underground fight club. While Rockstar has yet to reveal specifics, GTA 5 will undoubtedly have its share of random events and curated side missions that are scattered around for players to encounter (which are also spoken about in the aforementioned leaked description). For example, even though RDR 2’s map is mostly rural wilderness, players are still finding ridiculous secrets.
This commitment to making rich worlds goes even further, too, as Rockstar is notorious for its ridiculous attention to detail. This goes from the infamous story of RDR 2’s shrinking horse testicles to the license plates in GTA 5’s short opening in North Yankton being different from those in Los Santos. Rockstar games are built for the kinds of YouTube videos that run through dozens of arcane details most players would never notice without them being pointed out. And these types of small touches take time to implement. So even though more powerful technology has partially led to longer development times across the board, this is particularly relevant to Rockstar since it has almost always outscoped its competition.
3) The Pandemic
The rippling effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt today in many ways, and that still applies to game development. A decent portion of GTA 6 was created during lockdown, which caused developers to shift plans around to accommodate working from home. While Rockstar itself hasn’t officially commented on such troubles, Bloomberg reported as much in 2022 about how Rockstar struggled under the pandemic.
Many games were delayed during the more intense parts of the pandemic, too, from Deathloop to Halo: Infinite. A Game Developers Conference survey from 2021 found 41% of game devs had been pushed because of the pandemic. A detailed Fanbyte report dove into some of the troubles pandemic-era working brought. The need for remote quality assurance testing introduced security issues. Not being in the same place also made communication more difficult, which can elongate the process and exacerbate mental health issues.
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier spoke to some of the general issues with game development during the pandemic, citing the disruption that came with simple tasks such as checking in on a build when everyone is isolated from each other. Given Schreier’s previous reporting about Rockstar and the disruption developers felt around the industry, a game the size of GTA 6 was undoubtedly impacted by the pandemic.
2) A More Relaxed Company Culture (Mostly, Anyway)
Schreier’s reporting also went into the new company culture that has taken over Rockstar in recent years. The team was notorious for its brutal crunch practices where developers were forced to work ludicrous hours in order to meet deadlines, which is a toxic and debilitating practice designed to grind down workers. Schreier’s lengthy report from 2018 dove into how grueling it was for the team to ship RDR 2, citing over 60- to 80-hour work weeks, mandatory overtime, pressure to show up on weekends or stay late, and constant iteration that meant trashing previous work. While accounts vary in severity, it didn’t seem to vary too much from the previously arduous development cycles for the first Red Dead Redemption, GTA 5, or Max Payne 3, for example. It was a company that had long had a culture of working its employees to the bone.
Rockstar seemed to have changed its attitude following that blistering article sourced from multiple current and former developers. A 2022 article from Bloomberg went into detail speaking to the company’s more flexible approach to overtime, how it was making contractors full-time employees, firing of certain toxic leaders, and addition of producers meant to keep better track of schedules. All of these are steps that seem to address many of the complaints others previously had. (However, going a little back on these new developer-friendly changes, Rockstar mandated employees return to the office five days a week starting in early 2024 in order to put the team in the “best position to deliver the next Grand Theft Auto,” a move employees reportedly weren’t thrilled with.)
Taking care of employees and giving them space to create is something all studios should strive for. A byproduct of that much-needed approach, though, is that GTA 6 has taken a little longer to develop. Back in 2022, the game only had “loose schedules” and, according to those interviewed, didn’t have a firm release date. That aforementioned report also noted that a few had gotten “sick of the lack of progress” on the game.
It seems as though crunch may have slithered its way back into the studio. An anonymous poster on company review site Glassdoor said they were expected to work overtime without pay and that others were working until the early hours of the morning in order to cram around five or six months or work into two or three. None of this has been verified and no other similar reports have been shared, so it’s impossible to truly say how true or widespread this is. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick also said in a profile from May that crunch isn’t how Take-Two operates. However, it’s hard to take a CEO’s words as objective truths, as he’s not on the ground every day with the teams and has an incentive to omit the unflattering details.
1) Grand Theft Auto 5’s Continued Success
It’s a lot easier to take time making a sequel if the previous game is still raking in the cash, as evidenced by the third-best selling game of all time, GTA 5. As of May, GTA 5 has sold over 230 million copies since its launch in 2013. To put that in perspective, as of February 2024, Insomniac Games’ three beloved Spider-Man games have collectively sold over 50 million copies.
One game selling 230 million copies is absolutely staggering, and the story doesn’t stop there. According to hacked data from April, GTA Online earns Rockstar around $1.3 million per day. This is just alleged data that only starts from September 2025, meaning it’s likely the game was making even more money closer to launch or in the handful of years after. However, GTA Online revenue was up 5% when compared to the previous fiscal year, so it’s hard to tell when this cash cow was making the most money.
This kind of runway gives a team plenty of time to develop a sequel since it’s not like Rockstar, even in this brutal development environment, is going to run out of money developing GTA 6. GTA 5 was the most profitable entertainment product of all time as of 2018, and it seems to have kept that record going in the years since. It’s quite the outlier in the modern games industry where games are being rushed out and developers are being shuttered left and right.
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