2026 is finally the year Rockstar releases GTA 6, set to launch on November 19. However, Rockstar originally planned to develop GTA 6 alongside Red Dead Redemption 2, which could have allowed the former to launch years earlier.
Bloomberg’s new report about “The Making of Grand Theft Auto VI”, published on October 14, 2026, reveals that Rockstar originally planned to develop both massive open-world games side by side. But that plan became increasingly difficult as RDR 2 grew in scope and scale.
Rockstar North co-head Rob Nelson soon realized that the studio needed almost everyone on board, even its top executives, to finish the game. Naturally, the studio delayed GTA 6 for several years, but Nelson admits it will “pay off when we get to the game,” referring to building GTA 6’s mechanics on RDR 2.
Nelson’s comments make sense, since Rockstar’s upcoming title builds on several Red Dead 2 mechanics, as we saw in the GTA 6 Extended Look. One example is GTA 6’s Criminal Profile system, which builds on RDR2’s Honor System but tracks how professionally players commit crimes instead of measuring their morality.
Rockstar didn’t settle on the “skeleton” for the story of GTA 6 until 2019, a year after RDR 2 launched, which would later center on criminal duo Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos. Had Rockstar stuck to its original plan, the studio could have released GTA 6 in 2025 and avoided multiple delays.
Rockstar began researching Miami for GTA 6’s map as early as 2015, so it’s fair to wonder why the game has taken so long to release. But in the same report, Rockstar has assured fans their next game will release sooner, thanks to the foundation they’ve built with GTA 6.
Nelson further confirmed that Rockstar would now take on one project at a time instead of juggling two massive ones across different offices. That said, do you think they should’ve developed GTA 6 and Red Dead Redemption 2 together? Let us know.
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