It took 8 years after Red Dead Redemption 2 to get our hands on the hotly anticipated GTA 6, whose release was pushed back several times over the course of a particularly turbulent production. That sort of timescale inevitably raises questions for a studio the size of Rockstar Games, capable of pushing the limits of its games ever further, but also faced with projects that are increasingly heavy to build. In an interview with Bloomberg, however, its executives insist that such a long wait shouldn't happen again, and that the studio's next game could see the light of day within a far more reasonable timeframe. Phil Hooker, senior vice president of technology at Rockstar, reckons the teams now have much more solid foundations to speed up development on the next titles. The in-house engine, the tools and the experience built up during GTA 6's production should allow them to save time, without having to start from scratch with every new project.
Aaron Garbut, art director at Rockstar North, shares that view. In his eyes, the studio has profoundly changed the way it works over the past few years, but there's no question of rebuilding everything for each game. Part of the work done on GTA 6 will therefore serve as a foundation for subsequent productions, which should avoid duplicating certain efforts and make life easier for the teams.
Rockstar has doubled its headcount since Red Dead 2
But that's not all: we also learn that the size of the teams at Rockstar Games gives a sense of just how far things have come in recent years. According to figures reported by Bloomberg, the studio had 2,441 employees when Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in October 2018. By August 2026, the company counted 4,711 across 12 offices around the world. That considerable rise in headcount gives us a measure of the scale the studio's productions have taken on. That said, this growth in staff still wasn't enough to prevent GTA 6's delays. The game, initially known internally by the code name "Project Americas", was meant to cover a far larger map before Rockstar Games scaled back its ambitions to focus the adventure around Vice City. The pandemic then complicated working conditions, with coordination difficulties between teams, compounded by departures and changes in how the studio was organised.
Developing a game this ambitious therefore doesn't come down solely to the number of people involved. The larger and more scattered the teams, the more communication and coordination become decisive, especially when every element of the game has to work with the rest. Rockstar seems to have learned from the experience and hopes its current set-up will let it keep a firmer grip on future productions.
Could the next GTA arrive sooner?
Rockstar Games has already shown in the past that it's possible to dramatically shorten the gap between two games by reusing part of its work. GTA Vice City arrived in 2002, just a year after GTA III, by building on its predecessor's technical foundations. The two instalments offered different worlds but shared a base that allowed the studio to roll out releases at a pace that's hard to imagine today. The situation is obviously different in 2026. Audience expectations have moved on, open-world games have become far more complex and players scrutinise the smallest detail with particular attention. And then GTA 6 also has to meet the commercial ambitions of one of the industry's biggest licences, which partly explains the level of demand placed on its developers.
Rockstar Games will also have to decide how it keeps its next games alive after release. The success of GTA Online showed that a title can generate revenue for many years, but the studio hasn't yet detailed its long-term plans for the next instalment. Post-launch content could well weigh on the teams' availability and on the schedule for subsequent projects. So the promise is there, without amounting to any guarantee on future timescales. Rockstar now has a far bigger team and battle-tested tools, but we'll have to see how those resources translate in practice on its next productions. All that's left is to cross our fingers that it doesn't take quite so long. Incidentally, according to recent rumours, the next game from Rockstar Games would be L.A. Noire 2, with a release scheduled for 2030.
