How long has GTA 6 been in development?

Where does the 2015 date come from?

From Rob Nelson himself, Rockstar North’s co-studio head, speaking on the record. The French film magazine TROISCOULEURS visited Rockstar North in Edinburgh and asked how a long production copes with a changing world. Nelson answered that Rockstar works on very long cycles and that the game has been in development since 2015, so ideas gestate for years.

He then added the qualifier that matters: most of the team moved onto the game after Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in 2018. Take-Two’s own release puts that launch on October 26, 2018. So 2015 is when the project began, and 2018 is when the bulk of the staff arrived. The interview was published on August 27, 2026.

What did Edge and Bloomberg add about the early years?

Edge’s October 29, 2026 cover story, by Simon Parkin, says that by 2015 the team was already considering how lessons from RDR2, then deep in production, could carry over to GTA. It reports that Nelson led a small group to Miami that year to think about a return to Vice City, and that the earliest work was about place, not plot. These are Edge’s accounts, so we label them reported.

Edge adds that Rockstar held back from settling the Jason and Lucia story until RDR2 was finished, and that the two projects overlapped for years. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, in a video about his own visit, said a few artists have been on the project for over a decade, “since 2015, if not earlier”, per TechRadar. Leadership then moved most people to RDR2 for a time, he said, while a few kept working on the map.

What did Take-Two say about 2020?

VGC reported that Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, in the company’s May 15, 2025 results, said GTA VI “began development in earnest in 2020”, after Red Dead Redemption 2 did well. We couldn’t open a Take-Two transcript with the line, so it stays reported.

VGC read it as development ramping up only around the pandemic, when it had been assumed full production started once RDR2 shipped in 2018. For us, “in earnest” implies earlier work, and Nelson’s 2018 and Zelnick’s 2020 look like two ways of counting. Nothing we found says whether they mark the same milestone.

When did Rockstar first confirm GTA 6, and when did we see it?

On February 4, 2022, Rockstar posted that active development of the next Grand Theft Auto was well underway, with no date. TechRadar called it the first acknowledgement. Rockstar announced Grand Theft Auto VI by name, for 2025 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with Trailer 1 on December 4, 2023; our Trailer 1 report has the details. From the 2022 post to the November 19, 2026 release is 4 years, 9 months and 15 days.

How did the delays change the timeline?

They moved the finish line, not the start. VGC reports Take-Two said in February 2025 the game was still on track for fall 2025. On May 2, 2025 Rockstar moved it to May 26, 2026 (see the first delay), and on November 6, 2025 to November 19, 2026, which is 177 days later (see the second delay).

On why, Kotaku’s summary of a Bloomberg feature says Nelson described pressure to deliver top quality on an aggressive schedule, and Rockstar publishing head Jennifer Kolbe asked Zelnick for extra time twice. Rockstar’s own note said the months would let it finish with polish. The Bloomberg details are reported.

What we don’t know yet

No source we found gives a month for the 2015 start or says exactly what began then. Rockstar hasn’t said when full production started, and we have Zelnick’s 2020 wording only from VGC’s report, not a Take-Two transcript. Nobody has published the team’s size or when it peaked.