GTA 6 May Not Have Been in Dev As Long As You Think

There’s a common school of thought that GTA 6 has been in development for approximately 12 years, since GTA 5 shipped in 2013. But a new video published by David O’Reilly, a former Rockstar North environment artist, suggests the project may not have entered full-scale production until 2018.

In the video – where he browses through the game’s website and reacts to all of the latest screenshots – he reveals that he “worked on GTA 6 from 2018 to 2023” and that he “went onto it after we wrapped up on Red Dead Redemption 2”.

While this doesn’t eliminate the possibility of the project being in pre-production for over a decade, the likelihood is that the bulk of Rockstar’s team was working on Red Dead Redemption 2 up until its release in 2018. Therefore, it’s safe to assume GTA 6 has probably only been in full production since then.

Of course, by the time the game releases on 26th May, 2026, that’ll still be an eight-year development cycle, which is obviously enormous. But you’ve also got to consider the disruption caused by both the coronavirus pandemic and the leak, which will have undoubtedly set the developer back.