In case it wasn’t obvious, we’re talking about Grand Theft Auto 6. The once and future king of all open-world games. The magnum opus, the game to end all games, and which everyone is trying desperately to avoid. Surprised about that supposed August release window for Lords of the Fallen 2? Or that Halo: Campaign Evolved could launch before September, while Marvel’s Wolverine is launching halfway through?

Such is the power of Rockstar Games and the Grand Theft Auto name. No one wants their release to go figuratively toe-to-toe with Grand Theft Auto 6, much less hang around in the same vicinity. Because when you spend as much as Rockstar North reportedly has on employee wages alone, you can afford the breathing room.

Recently, fans discovered just how much that may be through public records maintained by the UK government agency, Companies House. Registered as Rockstar Games UK Limited, these outline wages and salaries from March 31st, 2019, to March 31st, 2025. Remember when Take-Two said development began in earnest around 2020? Rockstar North reportedly spent £191 million from 2019 to 2020 – about $252.6 million in what we can assume was pre-production alone.

Consider for a moment that Cyberpunk 2077, currently the seventh most expensive game ever made, spent roughly $526 million across all versions, marketing included, when adjusted for inflation in 2025. Let’s continue.

As production seemingly started rolling, costs increased gradually from March 2020 to 2021, with £223 million spent and then far more from 2021 to 2022, with £346 million spent. And while that marked the most expensive period of development per these records, the next two years would see the developer spend £316 million and £315 million.

Its latest report from March 31st, 2024, to the same date in 2025 indicates £282 million spent on salaries. Of course, we already know that Grand Theft Auto 6 got delayed – twice, in fact – and Rockstar has yet to reveal how much was spent from 2025 to 2026, never mind the other nine months leading up to its launch. However, if you calculate the current amount reportedly spent on employee wages alone, it’s about £1.6 billion or roughly $2.1 billion.

Disclaimer: While Companies House does “basic checks on documents,” ensuring they’re “fully completed and signed,” it doesn’t have “statutory power of capability” to verify their accuracy. So while these records are a strong indicator of how much has been spent, you shouldn’t take them as full confirmation. Not that Rockstar or Take-Two will willingly confirm the same if you ask nicely, but I digress.

The most expensive game ever developed is, believe it or not, Monopoly Go!, with $1.026 billion spent on development and marketing when adjusted for inflation last year. Star Citizen, which started releasing modules in 2013 – the same year that Grand Theft Auto 5 launched, conveniently enough – and Squadron 42 have already cost over $955 million. If these records for Grand Theft Auto 6 are accurate, then just based on developer salaries alone, it would be the most expensive game ever made. And again, that hasn’t even factored in marketing or costs spent on support studios. Heck, 21 months have yet to be accounted for. The total may cross $3 billion in wages when all is said and done.

However, as of March 2025, about $2.1 billion. It’s simply mind-boggling, but then again, is it? A former graphics programmer seemingly revealed that they worked on “next-generation procedural breakable glass” for vehicles and props over the course of three years and two months (among other things). With reports of all the other technical wizardry that the game will have – a “revolutionary new system” for real-time physically simulated water, more precise deformations for vehicles, a real-time weather system with heavy gameplay implications – it’s not surprising. Then again, there’s also that part in the documents about a monthly average of 1,744 employees at Rockstar, which is also an insane number in its own right.

“They’ll get that back in the first week of launch,” you’re no doubt thinking about that amount, and as incredulous as it sounds, you’re not wrong. Just think back to the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, which earned $800 million on its first day and $1 billion in three. By comparison, the sequel is on a whole other level when it comes to hype. It’s been touted as the savior for an industry that’s notoriously lagging in both hardware and software sales. It’s Take-Two’s cash cow for the next decade or so. Amid concerns of rising inflation, global tariffs and the economy in general, no expense has apparently been spared for Grand Theft Auto 6. Just like for Grand Theft Auto 5, and just like for Red Dead Redemption 2.

Conveniently, an interview by Kiwi Talkz with former audio designer Rob Carr talks about Rockstar’s thought process. Speaking on technical limitations – “’Each soundbank has to be X, Y, and Z, these are your limitations for every mission. These are the technical constraints,'” he said. But creative constraints? “’There isn’t any. Go nuts’” is apparently how the company operates. Which doesn’t mean that its teams can logically fit in everything that they want – just that, “It’s easier to dial it down, you know, dial it back, go too much and then strip some fat off than it is to not do enough and then have to push for that extra five or 10 percent at the end of the project,” says Carr. Which makes even more sense if Rockstar wants to instead spend that time on bug testing and polishing.

Nevertheless, it speaks to how the company has been when developing its games, and Take-Two always gives it that leeway for a reason. Other developers and publishers avoid it for the very same. What would ordinarily inspire outrage in terms of the sheer amount spent on development thus far – especially with criticism over ballooning cost in triple-A development – is pretty much a given. Creating an unrealistic standard that the genre has no hope in hell of ever reaching? Par for the course, really. It’s almost as if Grand Theft Auto is in a completely different realm that’s just plain untouchable, regardless of everything else. Not because this is how games are made, but because that’s how Rockstar wants to make them, all else be damned.

I’d like to believe spending hundreds of millions doesn’t automatically translate into a quality release, much less one that will see the light of day – look no further than reports of Eidos Montreal cancelling a project whose budget apparently blew well past nine figures. Nor should it be taken as the norm, despite the general direction of triple-A games over the past decade or more.

Instead, it can be best viewed as Rockstar doing Rockstar things, ensuring that Grand Theft Auto 6 stands out. It will be players’ de facto choice when it comes to spending $80, because there is no way it could retail for cheaper after these figures have come to light. It will help justify all those re-releases and special editions, all those double-dippers when the PC version rolls around. And maybe, that’s enough, but really, it’s because Rockstar probably doesn’t know how else to make games. With less than nine months before launch, either thought is scary and we probably can’t even imagine to what extent.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

And if you believe rumors of a reboot in 2020…well, it’s anyone’s guess how far back it truly began. We’re free to speculate as to why, but former audio engineer Rob Carr offered his own take on the long development cycle: The RAGE Engine, or rather, Rockstar North revamping it from the ground up.

“I’ve got zero experience,” he told Kiwi Talks in a recent interview. “I know nothing about it, other than the fact that they probably will have – given the time frame of how long it’s taken them to get to this stage, they’ve probably rebuilt the entirety of the Rage Engine. That’s the only thing I can say with real, genuine confidence.

“I’ll be amazed if they didn’t because the architecture of technology has advanced significantly since GTA 5, which again, is easy to forget. That was three generations ago. That was the last one to be released on 360 and PS3. You know, everyone forgets that because it’s still…up until recently, GTA Online was still a going concern. That’s a good tenure for a game for any game, you know, and that’s on the PS5.”

Between a former graphics programmer claiming they worked on “next generation procedural breaking glass” and rumors of realistic weather and real-time, physically simulated water, it wouldn’t be too surprising. However, it’s also possible that some things seen in Grand Theft Auto 5 could make their way over to Grand Theft Auto 6.

“There are things for sure I feel that they did in GTA 5 that they will definitely want to expand on and use as either a core mechanic or a main plot point or something in GTA 6. I’d be incredibly surprised if they don’t do anything like that. I’d be very, very surprised. But again, I’m coming in blind.”

While Red Dead Redemption 2 was mentioned as another title that Rockstar could potentially take from, Carr cited mechanics like Dead Eye from the first game and how it appeared in GTA 5. “Even on GTA 5, they took the Dead Eye system, and they used it as one of the perks.

“You’ve got the Dead Eye thing that Michael used. I think you’ve got the slow-mo driving thing for Franklin and the Berserker mode for Trevor. You know, they’re all things that, you know, key things that they’ve been used in previous sort of titles that they wanted to sort of expand upon.”

It would be interesting if certain mechanics from Grand Theft Auto Online also made an appearance (besides in what multiplayer mode Rockstar has included). For now, Grand Theft Auto 6 is slated to launch on November 19th for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. With launch marketing beginning this Summer, it’s not long before we learn more, so stay tuned.

Discovered by Reddit user Due-Vanilla-8294, these costs seemingly encompass employee wages and salaries reaching back to March 2019. The address corresponds to Rockstar North’s location, and as of March 31st, 2025, the average monthly employees is 1,744, a noticeable jump from a year prior when it was 1,658.

Of course, this likely doesn’t include marketing, and since these are only the developer’s costs, we don’t know if there are any associated with whatever support studios may be involved. Companies House also clarifies that despite carrying out “basic checks on documents received to make sure that they have been fully completed and signed,” it doesn’t possess “the statutory power or capability to verify the accuracy of the information that companies send to us.”

“The fact that the information has been placed on the public record should not be taken to indicate that Companies House has verified or validated it in any way.”

That said, if it is accurate, then this is only the expenditure as of March 31st, 2025. Imagine an additional year’s worth of costs, plus nine additional months, since Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch on November 19th. It could easily cross $3 billion, easily making it the most expensive video game ever developed. You had a nice run, Monopoly Go!, but it may be coming to an end soon.

As always, stay tuned for further updates and head here to learn more about the “next-gen” glass that Grand Theft Auto 6 will seemingly have.

This was reportedly discovered on the LinkedIn profile of a former graphics programmer, who worked at the company from February 2020 to April 2023. They took the lead on implementing this system for vehicles and props while also being responsible for “designing tools for production to capture in-game footage with extra details from our rendering system.”

As soon as this was all discovered, however, they apparently went about wiping every single detail, only specifying that they worked on Grand Theft Auto 6 for a little over three years. If former employees signed an NDA (and you’d have to think Rockstar would mandate it), then it would make sense. After all, it’s been more than a little antsy about alleged leaks over the past several months.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will be available on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 (barring any further delays). At this point, such an apparently detailed system for procedural breakable glass may only be one of the major details that it has in store. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months, especially as its release draws near.

He noted that, while Project Genie’s outputs can potentially “look like NBA 2K or EA Sports FC or Red Dead Redemption,” actually creating interactive game worlds tends to involve a lot more effort, and “is a completely different animal and does require human engagement [and] creativity.”

Zelnick believes that, while there is a potential use case for this AI-based technology, at least when it comes to making assets, it ultimately won’t help anyone “create hits”. Even when it comes to asset creation, he noted that there are plenty of assets available for developers to use.

“I was kind of stunned by the market’s reaction, because the market’s reaction was somehow seeing it as a threat to what we do, when it’s quite obvious that creation tools are beneficial for our industry,” he said. “I think the […] case for big entertainment companies is somehow that AI tools will mean everyone can create hits, doesn’t stand to reason.”

“These tools may help you create assets, but that won’t help you create hits. There are loads of assets out there now. It doesn’t matter if you push a button to create an asset, or it takes you six weeks, at the end of the day, you have an asset. And thousands of mobile games are launched every year, and there are a handful of hits.”

“The notion that somehow new tools would allow an individual to push a button and generate a hit, market a hit, and bring it to many millions of consumers around the world — it’s a laughable notion,” Zelnick continued. “It’s just never been the case with entertainment.”

In the same interview, Zelnick also spoke about how he isn’t too worried about the older audience for Grand Theft Auto 6 having to juggle real-life responsibilities with spending time in a massive open-world game. He noted that Take-Two Interactive has games that “appeal to all audiences,” and that fans of the GTA franchise that grew up playing 4 and 5 will be able to engage with GTA 6 just fine.

“I think we’re gonna have a lot of 17-year-olds playing GTA 6,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any risk of being like, ‘All right, yeah, if I didn’t play five or four or three or two or one, I’m not showing up.’ I think we’ll be able to engage every appropriate individual in GTA 6.”

Grand Theft Auto 6 is being developed for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is currently slated for release on November 19th. While the franchise has traditionally also seen PC versions coming out some time after the console launch, neither Rockstar Games nor Take-Two Interactive have made any such announcement yet.

When asked how older audiences, like those who have families to handle, could get bogged down with these responsibilities and not be able to enjoy Grand Theft Auto 6, Zelnick noted that the company has many games, like the NBA 2K and WWE 2K franchises, that can “appeal to all audiences.” He continued: “Others are specifically tailored at audiences that are 17 and above, for example, GTA. We serve all audiences and we market our products appropriately to the audience in question.”

As for audiences that may have grown up playing Rockstar’s previous titles like Grand Theft Auto 4 and 5, Zelnick isn’t too worried there either.

“I think we’re gonna have a lot of 17-year-olds playing GTA 6,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any risk of being like, ‘All right, yeah, if I didn’t play five or four or three or two or one, I’m not showing up.’ I think we’ll be able to engage every appropriate individual in GTA 6.”

For fans that may have grown up as gamers, Zelnick has a message: “If you fell in love with video games at 17 and you’re 40, guess what? You still do? Play video games.”

As the open-world title gets closer to its November 19th release date for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games are also getting ready for a major marketing push. Zelnick had spoken about this last month, noting that the game’s development is on track to not see further delays, and that plans for “marketing beats” over the Summer will continue as well.

“Well because we actually, obviously, track progress daily of everything that we do,” he said when asked about how he could be so sure that GTA 6 wouldn’t see yet another delay. “And we obviously announced that we have marketing beats coming this Summer. And we don’t spend money on marketing until we’re pretty close to release.”

He went on to discuss how, despite Grand Theft Auto 6 being a massive upcoming release, the company still has to spend time and money to market it. While there is awareness of the game in the industry, he noted that there also has to be energy for it.

“I think there’s a difference between awareness and energy, and we need to create the energy,” Zelnick explained. “We do have the awareness, the anticipation is huge, it’s bigger than ever before, but in our business you do have to tell people what’s coming and our consumers wanna know that this is gonna be great and they wanna see what the visuals look like.”

A recent report of Grand Theft Auto 6‘s IDs being added to the PlayStation Store backend have lent further credence to the title sticking to its planned release date later this year.

According to PlayStation Game Size on Twitter, which has access to the back-end, title IDs for Grand Theft Auto 6 were recently added to the store. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that pre-orders will begin soon, but more that they’re potentially on track for whenever Rockstar is ready to announce them.

Launch marketing will begin this Summer, according to Zelnick, and with the Summer Game Fest showcase set for June, pre-orders could open shortly after the new trailer debuts. It also wouldn’t be too surprising if various outlets managed to go hands-on with the title, revealing even more details.

In the meantime, Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Despite its physical release allegedly being delayed by several weeks to prevent spoilers, Zelnick confirmed this wasn’t the case. He also assured that it wasn’t using any generative AI, and that everything was hand-built “from the ground up” by Rockstar Games.

“This game, this could be Game of the Year, okay. Mark my words,” said York about Crimson Desert, praising its open-world activities and variety from recent trailers. “And the reason for that is because of how much you can get lost in this game… it really is a contender when it comes to all the cool stuff all this game kind of has to offer.”

“If GTA VI drops the ball, [Crimson Desert] could be Game of the Year,” York added. “If GTA VI wasn’t here at all this year, [Crimson Desert] would probably take Game of the Year, from what it looks like.”

This isn’t the first time that York has spoken about Grand Theft Auto 6. Back in December, he noted that Rockstar Games is unlikely to delay the highly-anticipated yet again, since it risks losing out on much of the hype it has been generating.

“If Rockstar Games delay GTA 6 again then the hype around the game will die down almost completely. Right now, nobody is searching for GTA 6,” said York. “Everyone knows there’s no news, there’s nothing to talk about… There’s a point to where you delay something so much that you start to make people angry.”

He also spoke about the potential reasons behind the last few delays, talking about how the developers are likely working on making GTA 6 as well-polished as they can.

“If I know Rockstar Games, and I know the guys over there, one of the reasons for the delay in releasing GTA 6 is because they’re trying to make it look as best as it can possibly be,” York said. “They’re polishing stuff. I don’t think they’re completely finished with the game, given how much is on the line and how big everyone’s expectations are for it.”

York has also previously praised the trailers released for Grand Theft Auto 6, going as far as to say that tie title will likely end up looking just as good as it looks in the videos. “I’m really impressed with how far they’re bringing the graphics for an in-game kind of version of this,” he said. “A lot of times you see [cinematics used], this is not that, when you play this game, it’s really gonna look like this.”

While you wait for the November 19th release date of Grand Theft Auto 6 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, you can check out some of the details developer Pearl Abyss has revealed about Crimson Desert. In an interview from earlier this week, marketing director Will Powers discussed the game’s dynamic weather system, and how it will affect gameplay as well as cutscenes. The studio has also confirmed that the game is fully voiced by human actors.

Grand Theft Auto 6

Rockstar’s upcoming return to Vice City is easily the biggest open-world release on the horizon, and the perfect candidate to start off the list. Grand Theft Auto 6 promises a living, breathing world packed with dynamic NPC routines, reactive law enforcement, and an unprecedented level of environmental detail. The dual protagonists inspired by the adventures of Bonnie and Clyde look to be a promising storyline filled with several emotional moments. Of course, missions, side activities, and emergent mayhem are also important pillars of the experience – so we are definitely looking forward to this one.

Answering a question about how Take-Two Interactive can be so sure about the November 19th release happening, Zelnick said that “Well because we actually, obviously, track progress daily of everything that we do. And we obviously announced that we have marketing beats coming this Summer. And we don’t spend money on marketing until we’re pretty close to release.”

As for whether or not a release as big and highly-anticipated as Grand Theft Auto 6 actually needs much of a marketing push behind it, Zelnick noted that the company has to show fans how the upcoming game will look. He said that, while there is awareness of the game in the industry, there also has to be energy for it.

“I think there’s a difference between awareness and energy, and we need to create the energy,” he explained. “We do have the awareness, the anticipation is huge, it’s bigger than ever before, but in our business you do have to tell people what’s coming and our consumers wanna know that this is gonna be great and they wanna see what the visuals look like.”

Publishing a game as big as Grand Theft Auto 6 also presents its own challenges, said Zelnick, who noted that “the marketing has to be delicate. It has to feel like this is real. This is not… we’re not selling hamburgers. We’re selling this unique art form.”

Zelnick had spoken about the marketing plans being in place to kick off in Summer in a statement earlier this month. “Our execution throughout Fiscal 2026 has been extraordinary, and we are highly confident as we approach Fiscal 2027 – which promises to be groundbreaking for Take-Two and the entire entertainment industry – led by the November 19th release of Grand Theft Auto 6 with Rockstar’s launch marketing set to begin this Summer,” he said.

Interestingly, rumors had popped up last month about Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive potentially foregoing a physical release for Grand Theft Auto 6 during its launch window in order to avoid any potential leaks. However, Zelnick confirmed in a statement that there are no such plans in the works. When asked about this during a recent earnings call, he simply said, “That’s not the plan.”

The November 19th release date on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S comes after Grand Theft Auto 6 faced many delays. There have also been rumors about a potential Switch 2 version being tested. However, neither it, nor the inevitable PC release have been confirmed for the time being. Zelnick has also spoken about how GTA 6‘s development doesn’t make use of generative AI tools for any of its creative aspects.