Rockstar Originally Planned to Include Regions Across North and South America in GTA VI Before Focusing on Vice City

A new report by Jason Schreier offers a look behind the scenes of GTA VI’s development and shares more details about how the project changed over the years. Rockstar originally had much bigger ambitions, with the game set to include vast areas of North and South America. The project was later scaled back, and development focused on Vice City and its surroundings.

This part of the story isn’t entirely new. Schreier reported in 2022 on a project known as Project Americas, which was expected to be significantly larger in scope. However, the latest report offers new details about what was happening inside Rockstar and why development took so many years.

Red Dead Redemption 2 Pushed GTA VI Back

Rockstar originally planned to work on GTA VI alongside Red Dead Redemption 2. But the western game’s ambitions gradually grew, demanding more and more people and resources. As a result, full-scale development on GTA VI didn’t begin until later.

The early stages were also difficult. Development was marked by creative disagreements, slow progress, and the departure of several senior designers. Rockstar also underwent significant growth. Around the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, it had approximately 2441 employees; today, it has around 4711 across its studios.

NPCs Are Expected to Be One of the Game’s Biggest Strengths

One of the most challenging problems was creating a huge number of characters and their behaviors. Rockstar therefore established a specialized studio in Los Angeles dedicated to creating NPCs, their dialogue, scenes, and interactions.

The developers want the world to feel as lively as possible, with players regularly encountering spontaneous situations. Rockstar’s Phil Hooker described an incident from a playtest in which he had originally set out to start a story mission. On the way, however, he crashed into a car, got into a conflict with its driver, later got into a fight with another character, robbed a store, and then fled from the police.

After two hours of playing, he still hadn’t reached the original mission. According to the developers, these kinds of unplanned chains of events are set to be one of GTA VI’s key features.

Rockstar Believed the Game Would Launch in 2025

According to the report, Rockstar’s leadership genuinely believed the game would launch as early as 2025. Some developers, however, were more skeptical and expected the project to need more time.

The delays weren’t caused by one specific problem. Rather, they were due to the sheer number of systems, content, and details that needed to be completed and fine-tuned. Rockstar was still making changes to the game in the final months of development.

There’s currently no indication of another delay, and GTA VI is still set to launch on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

GTA VI Is Meant to Lay the Foundation for Future Games, with the Next One Arriving in Less Than 8 Years

Rockstar also doesn’t want to use the technology created for GTA VI for just one game. The new engine, tools, and development process are intended to serve as the foundation for future content and projects. The company’s leadership expects this to make it possible to create new games and expansions more quickly. Rockstar hopes the next major project won’t need another eight years of development.

For the studio, GTA VI is more than just another entry in the series. It’s intended to be a technological foundation that Rockstar will build on for many years to come.

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