GTA 6 Was Once 'Project Americas', Spanning North and South America: The Biggest Reveals From Rockstar's Bloomberg Interview

Rockstar almost never explains how it makes its games. On October 14 it did. For a Bloomberg Businessweek feature, reporter Jason Schreier spent a day at Rockstar North in Edinburgh with head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe, the three heads of development Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut and Phil Hooker, and senior vice president for technology Jonathon Ashcroft. Bloomberg calls it the first time Rockstar has talked openly about the struggles behind GTA 6.

The result is the clearest picture yet of more than eight years of work. Here are the biggest reveals, in brief. Bloomberg's full feature is worth your time too.

It started as "Project Americas," covering parts of two continents

In 2015, Nelson and other senior staff flew to Miami on the game's first research trip. The code name was Project Americas, because the plan was to feature large stretches of both North and South America. It was later cut back to Miami and its surroundings, the area that became Vice City and the rest of Leonida.

Bloomberg doesn't say when or why the scope shrank, but it changes how Leonida reads. A map Garbut has described as around twice the size of GTA 5's is the focused version of a much bigger idea. Our map size explainer has what Rockstar has said about its scale.

Red Dead cost it years, and three people ended up running it

The first plan was to build GTA 6 alongside Red Dead Redemption 2. As Red Dead grew, Nelson moved most of the company onto finishing it, senior leadership included, and GTA 6 slipped back several years. Since then, most of Rockstar has worked on one project at a time.

After Red Dead, co-founder and longtime lead writer Dan Houser left, and Nelson, Hooker and Garbut all became heads of development. Bloomberg notes that a three-way lead is rare in games, and that some staff complained about indecision and clashing visions. Nelson says he knows people felt that way, but argues a single director can be just as slow.

There was a dark period

By the end of 2019, the leads had the skeleton of the story: Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, a criminal couple robbing their way through a fictional Miami. Almost everything else was still open, down to how realistic the game should be. Nelson describes arguments over whether buying beer should mean carrying a bottle from the fridge to the counter, and whether a stat-boosting sandwich should require a trip to the grocery store.

Then the pandemic shut Rockstar's performance-capture studios entirely, a hiring surge made communication harder, and some senior designers quit, frustrated at the lack of progress. Nelson calls it a dark period, when the vision still wasn't clear. By 2022, Bloomberg writes, there were finally enough working pieces to glimpse the whole game.

Jason and Lucia's relationship took years of old-school AI

The leads wanted the two protagonists to do everything together in the open world, not just in missions. Bloomberg says that meant complicated traditional AI, not generative AI like ChatGPT, and years of work. Nelson says there was hesitation until people inside the studio argued that a game about a couple has to let them be a couple.

In Bloomberg's example, you text Lucia as Jason, and minutes later the two are holding hands in a park, reminiscing about the time her mother got angry with him, before heading to the gym, robbing a store and fleeing the police while bantering the whole way. Our relationship explainer covers what else Rockstar has said about the system.

The 2022 hack ended remote work

In September 2022, an attacker phished their way into Rockstar's Slack and leaked dozens of clips of unfinished GTA 6, a story told in our history of the 2022 leak. Garbut told Bloomberg that seeing early work in public felt deeply invasive and was hard to take emotionally.

By 2024, Rockstar required staff in the office five days a week, and GTA 6 developers could no longer reach its servers from home, so a family emergency meant spending vacation days. Kolbe says the policy will be reviewed after launch, but she doubts Rockstar will adopt the usual hybrid model. It didn't stop the leaks: another major one hit in August, just before the Extended Look, leaving staff grumbling that the rules had been for nothing. The group behind it, CYBERLEEK, says its leaks are now over.

Rockstar says it tried not to crunch

Red Dead Redemption 2 meant months of 60-hour weeks for many staff. Kolbe says leadership promised the next GTA would not be finished through crunch, then hired more people, set more realistic schedules and offered paid time off, and sometimes extra pay, for extra hours. She admits it wasn't perfect and that some staff will say they crunched anyway, but says it was clearly better than Red Dead.

Two delays, and two calls to Take-Two's CEO

Rockstar's leaders say they genuinely believed the 2025 date in the first trailer, though Bloomberg says staff on the ground were more skeptical. Kolbe phoned Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to move the game to May 2026, then called again months later to move it to November. "You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding," is how she remembers his reaction to the second call. Once she explained why, she says, he accepted it, rather than telling the team to ship regardless.

There was no single dramatic cause, leadership says, just a lot of parts that didn't come together as fast as hoped. Hooker says they have changed things even in the last few months.

A studio in Los Angeles just for NPCs

One area that wasn't going to make it in time was the game's non-player characters. When the team saw how many it needed written and animated, Nelson says the projections were frightening, so Rockstar quickly built a Los Angeles studio of writers, producers and directors who do nothing but create NPCs. Hooker says the old schedule was achievable, but not with the game they wanted to make. See our NPC explainer for what Rockstar has shown of Leonida's crowds.

The two-hour detour that sold the team

Late in development, Hooker set off for a story mission in a test build and never arrived. A fender bender became a roadside argument, a pedestrian's insult became a fight, an unattended till became a robbery, and a police chase, a stolen car and a raid on a compound later, a fence handed him a new lead. Two hours had passed. He says everyone left that review convinced that if they held their nerve, they had something special.

The numbers, and the one Rockstar won't give

On cost, Kolbe knocked down the popular rumour that GTA 6 cost more than $1.5 billion. Bloomberg still calls it almost certainly the most expensive game ever made, and suggests it may have cost more than double the roughly $500 million that other publishers try to stay under. That undercuts the $2 billion figure that has circulated for years, including in our own cost explainer. Bloomberg also reports that the online component is expected in 2027, though the developers wouldn't discuss it.

The union case is heading for a verdict

Rockstar fired 34 people in 2025, most of them part of a group trying to unionize. Rockstar says they shared confidential information on a Discord server with hundreds of members, which the group disputes, and the case before an employment tribunal in Glasgow is expected to be resolved at the end of October. The group has since asked for voluntary recognition and meets management weekly. Kolbe called the talks positive and said Rockstar would recognize a union if staff want one. Background in our union explainer.

The next game won't take eight years

Rockstar's leads say GTA 6 is a foundation they can build on faster, and that their next release won't take another eight years. Hooker says the engine, tools and team built for this project will speed things up, and Garbut says the deep changes are finished and won't be torn apart again. Bloomberg points to Rockstar's own precedent: Vice City took less than a year because it was built on GTA 3's work. No next game was named, but it echoes what Zelnick said earlier this year, when he suggested Rockstar's next game could come faster.

What it means for November 19

During Bloomberg's late-September visit, the office was deep in bug fixing, and a progress board of green and red tiles showed green pulling ahead. Bloomberg's read is that November 19 looks like the real date. Our GTA 6 countdown has everything left before launch.

FAQ

What was GTA 6's code name?

Project Americas, according to Bloomberg, because the original plan covered large parts of North and South America.

How many people work at Rockstar Games?

4,711 as of August 2026, across 12 offices, up from 2,441 when Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in 2018.

How much did GTA 6 cost to make?

Rockstar won't say. Jennifer Kolbe dismissed the rumour that it cost more than $1.5 billion, and Bloomberg estimates it may have cost more than $1 billion.

When is GTA 6 Online coming out?

Rockstar hasn't announced a date. Bloomberg reports the online component is expected in 2027.

Will Rockstar's next game take another eight years?

Rockstar says no. Its leads told Bloomberg the engine, tools and team built for GTA 6 will make the next game faster. No next game has been announced.

Sources

• Bloomberg Businessweek - The Making of Grand Theft Auto VI
• Kotaku - Rockstar Swears You Won't Have To Wait Nearly A Decade For Its Next Game After GTA6