Rockstar Games has more than doubled its workforce to develop Grand Theft Auto 6, and is adamant that it won’t take another eight years to complete its next title.
In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg, Rockstar senior leadership said that when Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in 2018, the studio had 2,441 employees.
By 2026, Rockstar employed 4,711 staff across 12 offices. Of these, 4,020 work in development and QA, while 690 are in publishing.
Rockstar’s leadership stated that future games will be developed more quickly, as GTA 6 “is a foundation upon which they can build new content at a faster pace.”
“The engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly,” said co-head of development Phil Hooker. “I feel confident that we can build on top of this and go more sideways than upwards to build more compelling content.”
GTA 6 was first announced in 2023 with a planned 2025 release. The launch was postponed to May 26, 2026, and later rescheduled to its current date, November 19.
Rockstar’s head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe recalled informing Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick about both delays. “I think he said, ‘You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.’ But once we talked through why, he got it.”
“And I think we are really lucky that he is as reasonable as he is, because a lot of people would say, ‘You’d just better figure out how to ship it.’ And we have been really, really lucky that we have not found ourselves in that place, because that happens to a lot of teams, and we’ve all played those games. It’s not great.”
Zelnick previously told GamesIndustry.biz that he wasn’t “in the least” bit worried about the impact that delays could have on the business.
“As you know, occasionally across our entire company, including 2K and our mobile business, at times more time is required to polish a title to ensure that it’s released in its best possible form. And of course it’ll release in the same fiscal year as the prior date.”
“At the end of the day it’s our responsibility to do the right thing for our consumers, and that means delivering the best possible entertainment experience.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the topic of leaks was addressed. Rockstar was hit with its first set of leaks in September 2022, which were caused by a “network intrusion” and resulted in 90 in-development video clips of the game being shared.
“It feels like somebody’s wading through your dirty washing. It’s like they’re inside your head,” said Rockstar North co-head Aaron Garbut. “You see your early work out there. Nobody’s ever supposed to see that. It’s really weirdly invasive. And so it’s quite hard to deal with on an emotional level.”
Security at Rockstar was heightened as a result, leading to the elimination of remote work in April 2024. “The idea that we would have the game in that many environments is something that I think the security team would not love,” said Kolbe.
“I think if we did not have a game that people wanted to steal as much, maybe it would be an easier conversation.”
The developer is currently addressing another set of leaks from a hacker group that appears to possess a build of the game. The group began circulating footage in August.
Earlier this week, the group released additional footage and threatened to leak the full build, including the story mode, if Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, does not comply with its demands.