Rockstar Games originally intended to develop GTA 6 alongside Red Dead Redemption 2, according to a new Bloomberg report cited by IGN. That plan apparently did not last long, but it helps explain how the long-awaited sequel ended up taking so much longer than many fans had expected.
Bloomberg says Rockstar first aimed to run both projects in parallel, before the scale of Red Dead Redemption 2 made that approach unrealistic. Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson reportedly saw the western as an all-hands-on-deck project, which pushed GTA 6 onto the back burner. Even so, Nelson told Bloomberg that work done for Red Dead would “pay off” in GTA 6.
IGN’s report says that appears to have been true. GTA 6 draws on a number of ideas and systems from Red Dead Redemption 2, including the NPC interaction system. Bloomberg’s account suggests the game may look very different if Rockstar had continued to build it at the same time as the western sequel. It also implies that, had the original plan held, GTA 6 could have reached players in the early 2020s rather than after a much longer wait.
That timeline lines up with the way Rockstar has spoken publicly about the game’s release window and delays. The first window the studio ever actually announced for GTA 6 was 2025, and the game has since slipped more than once. The delays were enough to surprise Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, according to the Bloomberg report.
Rockstar head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe described one of those calls to Bloomberg, recalling Zelnick’s reaction after she had to tell him, just months after the first delay was announced, that the team needed more time.
“You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding,”
Kolbe said Zelnick replied, before the conversation turned to why the game needed another delay. She added that Rockstar has been fortunate to have a publisher that accepted the reasoning behind those decisions rather than pushing the studio to ship before it was ready.
“A lot of people would say, ‘You’d just better figure out how to ship it.’”
She said that sort of pressure can be damaging to teams and that Rockstar had avoided ending up in that position. The comments frame the delays as part of a broader production problem rather than a single missed deadline.
How Rockstar’s plans changed
Bloomberg’s report also pushes back on a rumor that has followed GTA 6 for years: the idea that Rockstar had been actively making it in earnest since shortly after Grand Theft Auto 5 launched in 2013. That does not appear to be the case. Instead, Bloomberg says different teams and leaders within Rockstar had been researching and planning GTA 6 since as early as 2014.
Rockstar has also previously talked about sending staff to Florida to research and gather inspiration for the game during the mid to late 2010s. Bloomberg says the studio still did not have a “skeleton” for the story until the end of 2019, a year after Red Dead Redemption 2 released. Even then, the report says, it took time before the team fully understood what the game would become.
That detail helps explain the size of the gap between the game’s earliest planning and the eventual release schedule. It also supports the idea that GTA 6 was not simply delayed by marketing or a single production issue, but by a much longer process of defining the game itself after Rockstar’s priorities shifted.
For readers trying to track the game’s path through all the rumors, leaks and release-window chatter over the years, Rockstar’s actual public timeline is much shorter than the speculation around it. Earlier GAMER2GO coverage has followed those rumors closely, including reports about a potential PC release window in early 2027 and separate stories about leaks and other developments around the game.
You can read that earlier report here: report says GTA 6 could reach PC in early 2027, only months after consoles.
What the report says about Rockstar’s future
Bloomberg’s report does not stop at GTA 6’s past. It also says Rockstar now expects to spend far less time on its next game, in part because the studio believes some of the obstacles that slowed GTA 6 are not as severe going forward.
The article points to several of those obstacles: Rockstar doubled in size during GTA 6’s development, encountered multiple leaks, and lost productivity during the pandemic. The studio also made major changes to how it operates, and Bloomberg says Rockstar believes those changes will put it in a better position next time.
That next project has not been announced. Bloomberg says some fans may assume Red Dead 3 is the obvious follow-up, while others hope Rockstar breaks its pattern of alternating between Red Dead and Grand Theft Auto for something different or a revival of another series. Rockstar has not said what comes after GTA 6, but the report says one thing is already clear: it should not take another eight years.
Worth replaying RDR2 first?
I would. A lot of the systems GTA 6 seems to be using are easier to notice after RDR2, especially the NPC stuff. Makes the wait feel less random.
cheers, that helps mate
yeah, do it. the pacing is slow but it helps
rockstar putting gta 6 on the back burner for red dead sounds very rockstar tbh
yes because rdr2 eat all people. gta 6 wait more for that
Maybe, but RDR2 was the bigger bet for them at the time. If that game needed everyone, GTA 6 probably could not share the same lane.
the part about them not even having a proper story skeleton until 2019 is wild. that is a long time to be ‘planning’ a game
preproduction is still work
preprod with no skeleton for years is still a meme though?
kinda, but if they were doing research, systems, and world stuff, that’s not nothing
early 2020s gta 6 would have been insane
I don’t think it would have been the same game if it came out that early. The report says GTA 6 only had research and planning going back to 2014, and no real story skeleton until 2019. That sounds like a project that was still finding its shape, not one that was just sitting on a finished build. More time can be annoying, but in this case it probably changed the design in a big way.
fair, the scope probably wouldnt be there yet
yeah, and you can see that in other games too – rough early planning often becomes the core of the final product. even in comp, teams that spend more time on fundamentals usually look cleaner later
fair enough, we’ll see when it finally lands
rockstar saying the next game should take way less time is hilarious. sure, after only one giant dev cycle and a pile of leaks
three more delays later and maybe we get there lol
the whole ‘ship it earlier’ crowd always ignores how rushed games age. i’d rather they take the time than launch another broken mess
depends on the game honestly. if they keep changing the story and systems, time alone does not fix that
there’s a line though. eight years is not normal either
fair, but i’d still take late over rushed on a game this big
honestly the better hot take is that the delay probably helped gta 6 more than hurt it
helped the game maybe, helped the players not so much. waiting this long is pain
you want instant gta now?
people keep acting like 2013 to 2026 means one team just sat there. this sounds more like they were building pieces for years before the actual game took shape
yeah, the report says 2014 planning at least. that fits
not always. sometimes too much planning makes game feel empty too, but here 2014 to 2019 for story is still a lot
the part about florida research makes sense, the map vibe in gta 6 already feels more specific than gta 5 did
that kind of research matters. if they copy the real place badly, you notice it right away in open world games
so what, they sent people on a field trip and called it dev work? nice gig
lol maybe, but if it helps them nail the map and the weird npc stuff i’m fine with it
that part actually sounds like real prep to me. gta games need that detail or the world feels fake