•A new report from Bloomberg revealed additional details about GTA 6, including how the game’s scope was originally far larger and that it could have been released years sooner.
According to the report, when a small team of Rockstar developers traveled to Miami in 2015 to begin planning the game—then under the codename Project Americas—they envisioned it spanning “big swaths of land across both North and South America.” The scope was later pared down to focus on Miami and its surrounding areas instead.
The resulting map is still substantial, with GTA 6’s map being 3X bigger than that of Rockstar’s previous game, 2018’s Red Dead Redemption II. Beyond Vice City, the Miami-based version of Leonida—a stand-in for Florida—includes a range of other locations.
The confirmed major locations in GTA 6 so far include:
- Vice City
- Leonida Keys
- Grassrivers
- Port Gellhorn
- Ambrosia
- Mount Kalaga
The report also examined how Rockstar originally intended to develop GTA 6 concurrently with Red Dead Redemption II, which would have brought the game to market sooner. However, as the scope of Red Dead Redemption II grew, Rockstar’s Rob Nelson realized he needed to assign more staff across the studio network to release the Western in 2018.
According to Bloomberg, this shift meant GTA 6 would be delayed “several years,” though one benefit was that the work on Red Dead Redemption II would “pay off when we get to the game [GTA 6].” Nelson noted that Rockstar once developed multiple games concurrently across its offices, but now its teams work on a single project together before moving on.
The report also covered how Rockstar denied the rumor that GTA 6 cost $1.5 billion to develop, without providing specifics on the actual figure. The game has reportedly generated $600 million in revenue through pre-sales, a number that could rise to $2 billion before the game even releases.
GTA 6 was originally set to launch in 2025, then delayed to May 2026 and again to November 2026. When Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick learned of the second delay, he told Rockstar, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”.
GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, unless it is delayed again—a possibility that Rockstar has not ruled out.
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