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Bloomberg has released a massive article, detailing in-depth the development of GTA 6 and why it took so long, with exclusive information that we've never heard before. Here are the highlights: - GTA VI has been in full development for over 8 years, making it Rockstar's biggest and most ambitious project. - The original vision included large areas of North and South America, but the scope was eventually reduced to Vice City (Miami) and its surrounding regions. - Rockstar initially planned to develop GTA VI alongside Red Dead Redemption 2, but RDR2 required most of the company's resources, delaying GTA VI's development. - Rockstar shifted from developing multiple games simultaneously to focusing most of its workforce on one major game. - Rockstar's workforce nearly doubled, growing from 2,441 employees in 2018 to 4,711 in 2026, spread across 12 offices. - Rockstar's three heads of development are Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut, and Phil Hooker, rather than one traditional game director. - The game's basic story, featuring Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, was established by late 2019. - The developers experienced a difficult early development phase, described internally as a "dark period," when the game's overall vision remained unclear. - By 2022, enough of the game's systems had come together for the developers to begin seeing the complete vision. - GTA VI features Rockstar's most realistic and detailed open world yet, building heavily on systems introduced in Red Dead Redemption 2 - Rockstar invested heavily in making NPCs feel believable, rather than simply populating the world with generic characters. - The developers struggled to balance realism and entertainment, debating how interactive everyday activities should be, such as purchasing drinks or preparing food. - Jason and Lucia can spend time together throughout the open world, rather than interacting only during scripted missions. - Players controlling Jason can text Lucia and arrange to meet up. - Making the couple behave naturally required complex traditional AI systems, which took years to develop. - Rockstar considers the dynamic interactions between Jason and Lucia one of GTA VI's biggest innovations. - GTA VI aims to balance GTA 5's chaotic, satirical gameplay with RDR2's realism and emotional storytelling. - GTA VI's NPC systems are designed to generate unpredictable interactions and situations naturally. - Bloomberg was shown a gameplay session by development head Phil Hooker, which emphasized this series of entirely unscripted event: He accidentally collided with another driver, Hooker attempted to visit a convenience store to recover health then another NPC insulted him, triggering a violent confrontation. he found the cash register unattended and robbed the store. Police pursued him, forcing him to abandon his vehicle so he stole another valuable vehicle intending to sell it then another vehicle blasting loud music nearly hit him, following that vehicle led him to discover a compound containing valuables. he stole the goods, visited a fence to sell them, and received another lead for an activity. - Two hours passed without Hooker reaching the story mission he originally intended to test, that's how much fun there is to have in the GTA 6 open world, its insane! - Hooker described this experience as one of the moments that convinced the team they had created something special. - The game is designed to create these emergent gameplay experiences through overlapping NPC behaviors, police reactions, exploration, and criminal opportunities. - Rockstar discovered it lacked the production capacity to create all the NPC content it wanted. To address this, Rockstar established a new Los Angeles studio dedicated to creating NPCs, employing writers, producers, and directors. - Rockstar's leadership says the GTA 6 delays resulted from the immense complexity of bringing all the game's systems together, rather than one major technical problem. - Some gameplay systems and design decisions were still being changed during the final months of development. - Rockstar chose to delay the game rather than release a version that failed to meet its quality ambitions. - Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was reportedly shocked by the second delay but ultimately supported the decision. - At Rockstar North, developers were heavily focused on bug fixing ahead of release, with internal progress indicators showing more resolved issues than outstanding ones. - In September 2022, GTA VI suffered a massive leak after an attacker used phishing to access Rockstar's Slack communications. - Dozens of unfinished gameplay videos were released publicly, exposing early development work. - Rockstar developers described the leak as deeply invasive and emotionally difficult. - The COVID-19 pandemic also significantly disrupted development, particularly performance capture. - Several senior designers departed during development amid frustration over slow progress. - Rockstar experienced another major leak in August 2026, despite introducing stricter security measures. By 2024, Rockstar required employees to work five days a week in the office. - Developers were prohibited from accessing company development servers and tools remotely, a policy Rockstar said was necessary for security. - Rockstar intends to reconsider its remote-work policy after release, although a conventional hybrid arrangement is considered unlikely. - Rockstar sought to eliminate the prolonged crunch periods associated with RDR2, which involved months of approximately 60-hour workweeks for some employees. - The company introduced improved scheduling, additional hiring, and compensation or paid leave for extra hours. - Leadership acknowledges that crunch was not entirely eliminated but claims working conditions improved considerably. - Rockstar leadership says it will recognize a union if employees want one. - Rockstar specifically rejected the rumor that development exceeded $1.5 billion. - GTA VI's online component is expected to arrive in 2027, although Rockstar has not yet discussed it in detail. So here's a big part: What is next for Rockstar? - Rockstar believes GTA VI establishes a new technological and production foundation for its future games and content. - The company says it has invested heavily in improving its engine, development tools, and production pipelines. - Developers believe these improvements will allow them to create future content substantially faster. - Rockstar's leadership says its next release should not require another eight years of development. - The team points to GTA III and Vice City as an example of how a strong technological foundation can accelerate follow-up projects. - Garbut says much of the fundamental technology has now been rebuilt and Rockstar does not intend to overhaul it again. - The three development heads believe GTA VI represents the culmination of almost 30 years of accumulated experience. Overall, this is a deeply interesting look inside of Rockstar and the development of GTA 6, it's clear that this game is now just the basis of what Rockstar intends to do going forward. I hope that with this foundation, they put out games like Bully 2, RDR3, GTA 7 and more much faster as they get back to faster releases.