Rockstar says games after GTA 6 will be made faster

Rockstar Games says fans shouldn't have to sit through another wait like the one for GTA 6. Speaking to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier for a feature on how the game was made, director Phil Hooker said that "the engine, the tools and the team we've built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly," as reported by Dexerto and GamesRadar+ on October 14.

Hooker added: "I feel confident that we can build on top of this and go more sideways than upwards to build more compelling content." Aaron Garbut backed him up. He said the studio "foundationally changed a lot of stuff" during GTA 6 and, now that the work is finished, is "not going to rip it apart."

Outlets give the two men different job titles. According to Eurogamer.es, Hooker and Garbut led GTA 6 together with Rob Nelson, an unusual three-director setup that followed several senior departures after Red Dead Redemption 2, including co-founder Dan Houser.

Why GTA 6 took so long

GTA 5 came out in 2013 and Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018. GTA 6 has been in development for roughly eight years since then, which Dexerto calls Rockstar's longest project to date. Rockstar originally aimed for late 2025, moved the game to May 2026, then delayed it again to November 19, 2026.

The Bloomberg feature, as summarised by Eurogamer.es, fills in a lot of that history. Planning started in 2015 under the name "Project Americas," with a far bigger map covering parts of North and South America. That plan was eventually cut back to a fictional Miami and its surroundings. The Jason and Lucia story was locked in by late 2019, and many of the game's systems existed by 2022. After the September 2022 leak, Rockstar reportedly scrapped staff's two weekly remote work days and brought everyone back to the office full time.

The second delay apparently came as a surprise at the top. Eurogamer.es reports that Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick thought Rockstar was joking when it asked for more time. After that delay, the studio reportedly opened a new Los Angeles office devoted almost entirely to NPCs and hired many more writers. GTABase adds that Rockstar grew from 2,441 employees in 2018 to 4,711 in 2026 and overhauled its RAGE engine along the way. We covered more of the feature in our piece on Bloomberg's GTA 6 making-of report.

What it means for players

Nobody at Rockstar gave a timeline or named a next project, so treat this as intent, not a schedule. The phrase "more sideways than upwards" is the most telling part. It suggests Rockstar wants to spend its time building new content on the technology it already has, not rebuilding that technology again. According to Eurogamer.es, the studio compared this to the GTA III era. GTA III's tools made it possible to ship Vice City quickly, and GamesRadar+ notes that Vice City was made in under a year.

Other questions are still open. GamesBeat has reported that a PC version is planned for the first quarter of 2027, but Rockstar hasn't confirmed it. GTA Online's future is also unclear. Dexerto points out that Zelnick has said Take-Two will support the current version for as long as people keep playing it.

Crunch and the union dispute

According to Eurogamer.es, the directors told Bloomberg that working conditions were better than on Red Dead Redemption 2. They did not deny that crunch happened on GTA 6, though, and said only that it wasn't as bad. Rockstar is also facing a legal case over the firing of more than 30 Rockstar North staff who were trying to unionise. Asked about it, leadership reportedly said that if workers want a union, they will get one. That comment carries extra weight with a union vote at Rockstar UK scheduled for launch month.

GTA 6 launches on November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Whether the next Rockstar game really arrives faster won't be clear for years.