GTA 6 began as Project Americas across two continents, Rockstar says
Rockstar told Bloomberg GTA 6 was first codenamed Project Americas, spanning North and South America, before being cut back to Miami and pushed behind RDR2.
Confirmed. Rockstar Games or Take-Two said this on the record.
Grand Theft Auto 6 started out with a much bigger plan than the one shipping on November 19. In a wide-ranging Bloomberg feature, Rockstar said the game's original codename was Project Americas. The idea was a map covering large parts of both North and South America. As Eurogamer and GamesRadar+ reported on October 14, that plan was later narrowed down to Miami and the region around it.
From Miami in 2015 to a long pause
The project goes back further than most fans assumed. In 2015, Rob Nelson (now co-head of Rockstar North) led a team to Florida on what the feature describes as the game's first research visit. That was only a couple of years after GTA 5 came out, and long before Rockstar publicly confirmed GTA 6 in 2022.
The original plan had Rockstar North building Project Americas while Rockstar San Diego worked on Red Dead Redemption 2. Then RDR2's scope kept growing. GamesRadar+ says Nelson realised the western needed the whole company to get it finished, so GTA 6 sat on the back burner for several years. Nelson framed the detour as an investment: the work done for RDR2 would "pay off when we get to the game." He added that these days, most of Rockstar's people concentrate on a single game at once.
The company grew a lot after that. Bloomberg's figures, cited by Eurogamer, have Rockstar going from 2,441 to 4,711 employees. Eurogamer says those staff are spread across 12 offices, while GamesRadar+ counts 11 studios. Co-founder and longtime GTA writer Dan Houser also left, and Nelson, Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker were promoted to lead development.
The core of the game was in place by 2019, including the Jason and Lucia double act. Getting the details right took longer, especially once Covid-19 sent staff home. "Trying to keep a team together through that is really challenging," Nelson said.
Crunch, unions and that phone call
Rockstar's head of publishing, Jennifer Kolbe, said the crunch around Red Dead Redemption 2 forced the studio to take a hard look at itself. "We're not doing it again like this," she recalled the leadership deciding. She admitted the result is "not been perfect, but it's certainly better than Red Dead 2 was."
On unionisation, Kolbe said: "We go where the team goes. So if they want a union, they will have a union." That comes as Rockstar faces an employment tribunal in Scotland over the firing of 34 employees, 31 of them at Rockstar North. Rockstar says they were dismissed for gross misconduct. The former staff call it union-busting. Eurogamer reports the tribunal is due to conclude in November. (Developers at Rockstar UK are also set to vote on a union during launch.)
Garbut talked about the 2022 hack, which leaked unfinished footage of the game, comparing it to someone "wading through your dirty washing." Kolbe also described calling Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick to tell him GTA 6 would miss its May 2026 date. His first reaction, as she remembers it: "You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding." She said he accepted the delay once they explained why. Eurogamer notes that Rockstar did not comment on the current CyberLeek leaks in the interview.
What it means for players
Nobody should expect the cut South American content to show up later. Rockstar hasn't said anything about bringing those regions back. What the story does explain is the 13-year gap: GTA 6 wasn't idle for most of the last decade, it was waiting in line behind RDR2.
The better news concerns what comes next. Phil Hooker said "the engine, the tools and the team we've built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly," and Garbut said Rockstar won't tear that foundation apart now that it's finished. We covered that promise in more detail in Rockstar says the games after GTA 6 won't take as long to make. For another detail from the same feature, see our story on the Bloomberg making-of report.
GTA 6 launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. A PC version is reportedly planned for the first quarter of 2027, but Rockstar hasn't confirmed that date.
