Bloomberg on how GTA 6 was made: Project Americas, two delays, crunch and a sweat system

On October 14, 2026, Bloomberg Businessweek published a long feature by Jason Schreier, who visited Rockstar North in Edinburgh in late September. He interviewed the studio’s three heads of development, Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker, as well as head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe and Jonathon Ashcroft, senior vice president of technology. The article is paywalled, so this summary relies on GamesRadar+ and GTAVice.net, which quote it, and on Schreier’s video about the report.

It began as Project Americas

Rob Nelson confirmed that a group of Rockstar staff flew to Miami in 2015 on the first research trip for the game (the game has been in development since 2015). Its code name was Project Americas, and the map was to include parts of both North and South America (fact in the registry). Rockstar North was meant to build it while Rockstar San Diego made Red Dead Redemption 2, but Red Dead grew until it needed the whole company, and GTA 6 was pushed back by years. The plan was later scaled down to Vice City and the rest of Leonida.

Most of Rockstar’s staff now work on one game at a time, Nelson said. After Red Dead Redemption 2 and the departure of co-founder Dan Houser, who left in 2020, the game was led by Nelson, Garbut and Hooker. By late 2019 the outline of Jason and Lucia’s story was set, but the team was still working out how the game should play. The pandemic disrupted communication and performance capture, some staff grew frustrated with slow decisions, and experienced developers left. By 2022 enough systems had come together for the team to see the game take shape.

Jason and Lucia between missions

Rockstar wanted the two to act like a real couple outside scripted missions too. Bloomberg describes one sequence: playing as Jason, you text Lucia to meet; the two hold hands in a park and remember the time her mother got angry with Jason; then they go to the gym, where she runs on a treadmill while he does squats. The day can turn criminal: they rob a convenience store together and keep flirting while they escape the police (fact in the registry). It fits what Nelson has said about the relationship and about training as a pair.

Two hours without reaching a mission

Phil Hooker described an internal session in which he set off for a story mission and never got there. A minor crash turned into a fight with the other driver. Low on health, he headed to a convenience store for something to eat, argued with a pedestrian on the way, found nobody at the register and robbed the store instead. He escaped the police, ditched his car, followed a driver blasting music who had nearly hit him, and ended up at a compound full of valuables. He sold the haul to a fence, who gave him a lead on another job. About two hours had passed (fact in the registry). For Rockstar, the story shows how the game’s systems turn ordinary encounters into long unscripted stretches.

Realistic, but not tedious

The team argued about how far realism should go. Should buying beer mean taking a bottle from the fridge, carrying it to the till and paying? Should cooking at home require buying ingredients first? Rockstar looked for a balance between a believable world and a game that stays fun, the same reasoning Nelson gave for cutting a grocery system (how the body works in GTA 6).

Research took staff on police ride-alongs, helicopter flights to photograph the city and nights in Miami clubs. Garbut said a convincing nightclub needs individually animated visitors, the right behavior, music and lighting all working together. When Rockstar found it couldn’t produce enough non-player characters, it set up a production team in Los Angeles with its own writers, producers and directors (how Rockstar built Leonida). In a video released with the feature, Schreier added one more detail: characters sweat according to effort, so Jason or Lucia will sweat more after dancing hard in a nightclub (fact in the registry).

Staff, money and crunch

Rockstar had 2,441 employees in 2018 and 4,711 in August 2026, across 12 offices, Bloomberg reports. It suggests the budget may exceed $1 billion. Kolbe rejected the figure of more than $1.5 billion, which analyst Michael Pachter estimated in 2025, but didn’t give a number of her own. Rockstar hasn’t disclosed the budget.

After the crunch on Red Dead Redemption 2, Kolbe says, the leadership agreed to work differently: “We’re not going to finish this game by crunching.” Rockstar offered paid time off for extra hours and sometimes extra pay. Kolbe admits it hasn’t been perfect but says it was better than on Red Dead 2. In July some employees alleged that overtime was still built into their contracts, GamesRadar notes. Kolbe also said Rockstar would accept a union if staff want one; the firing of developers in October 2025 is before an employment tribunal in Glasgow.

Leaks and the office

In September 2022 an attacker got into Rockstar’s internal Slack through phishing, and unfinished footage spread online. “It’s like they’re inside your head,” Garbut said of having unfinished work exposed. Rockstar then required staff to be in the office five days a week and limited remote access to its systems. Another leak came in August 2026, just before the Extended Look (what Rockstar said). Kolbe said the office policy will be reviewed after release, though an ordinary hybrid arrangement is unlikely.

Two delays

GTA 6 was first due in 2025, then moved to May 2026 and finally to November 19, 2026 (release date and delays). According to Bloomberg, no single problem caused the delays: the developers decided they needed more time to reach the quality they wanted. Kolbe delivered both decisions to Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick. The second time, he asked her to tell him she was kidding, then accepted the team’s reasons. Ashcroft said that with thousands of people building separate pieces, the trailers showed everyone how their work fits together, calling them “huge guiding lights.”

After GTA 6

Rockstar expects the tools and technology built for GTA 6 to make its next games faster to produce. The executives pointed to GTA Vice City, made in less than a year on the technology of GTA III, but announced no new projects or dates. “The last 30 years has been practice for where we got to here,” Garbut said. Bloomberg also cites analysts who expect about 40 million copies sold on PlayStation and Xbox in the first four months, which could bring in more than $3 billion, and repeats that the online part is expected in 2027. Neither figure comes from Rockstar.

What to keep in mind

• We haven’t read the original: it is paywalled, and everything here comes from outlets that quote it
• Staff numbers, the possible budget and sales are Bloomberg’s figures and analysts’ forecasts; Rockstar hasn’t confirmed them
• The gameplay examples come from development builds and may change before November 19