Summary
- Aaron Garbut, Rockstar’s head of development, also indicated that the studio would not need to rebuild the foundations established for GTA 6 once the game was complete.
- Hooker said he was confident Rockstar could build on the work completed for GTA 6 and “go more sideways than upwards” when developing future content, suggesting the studio need not focus solely on making each new game larger.
- Development of GTA 6 also required Rockstar to establish a studio dedicated to creating non-player characters, after the team found it lacked the production capacity needed to write and animate them all.
Rockstar Games developers say the tools, technology and team assembled for Grand Theft Auto VI should help the studio produce future games more quickly, potentially avoiding another lengthy wait between releases.
Phil Hooker, a technical lead on the upcoming game, made the remarks in an interview with Bloomberg, saying the experience gained during development would help the company speed up future projects.
“The engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly,” Hooker said.
Aaron Garbut, Rockstar’s head of development, also indicated that the studio would not need to rebuild the foundations established for GTA 6 once the game was complete.
“We’re not going to rip it apart,” Garbut said, referring to the work already done on the game.
The release of GTA 6 will come 13 years after Grand Theft Auto V, which debuted in 2013, and eight years after Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, released in 2018. The long gap between major releases has fuelled expectations that the next instalment could take years to arrive.
Hooker said he was confident Rockstar could build on the work completed for GTA 6 and “go more sideways than upwards” when developing future content, suggesting the studio need not focus solely on making each new game larger.
Rockstar has not announced its next game or provided a release window.
The company previously released Grand Theft Auto: Vice City about a year after Grand Theft Auto III, reusing much of the groundwork established for the earlier title.
Development of GTA 6 also required Rockstar to establish a studio dedicated to creating non-player characters, after the team found it lacked the production capacity needed to write and animate them all. The additional work contributed to the game’s delay, according to reports on the Bloomberg interview.
The game is scheduled for release on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Set in the fictional state of Leonida, it features a return to Vice City, a setting inspired by Miami.
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