Summary
- It seems Grand Theft Auto 6 has been in development for nearly a decade, according to leaked information.
- Rockstar's development cycles for Grand Theft Auto games have been long but productive, with GTA 5 starting development in 2008 and GTA 4 in 2004.
- A former Rockstar employee's LinkedIn profile confirms that he worked on GTA 6 from 2015 to 2018, indicating that the game has been in development since at least 2015.
Grand Theft Auto 6 has been in development for nearly a decade at this point, according to some newly leaked information which also mentions not one but two Bully games. This bit of unofficial insight into Rockstar's past and present projects arrives mere days after Take-Two's financial report hinted at a possible release window for GTA 6.
While Rockstar's development cycles have gotten exceedingly long over the years, the company has never been one to rest on its laurels when it comes to Grand Theft Auto games. GTA 5 hence started development circa 2008, not long after the fourth numbered entry in the series released. Similarly, the pre-production on GTA 4 began in November 2004, just as GTA: San Andreas hit the market.
GTA 6 has apparently followed a similar pattern, as suggested by a recently spotted LinkedIn profile of former Rockstar Research Video Editor Jon Young. The industry veteran revealed that he worked on Grand Theft Auto 6 over a three-year period ending in 2018, when he left the company after a 13-year stint. That tidbit indicates that the upcoming game started development no later than 2015, possibly around spring, when Rockstar released the highly coveted PC port of GTA 5.
Young also wrote that he was involved in the development of two Bully sequels in 2008. The fact that Bully 2 was once in the works and subsequently canceled is widely known nowadays, but the ex-Rockstar staffer is the first person to ever suggested that Bully 3 was also on the cards once upon a time.
Seeing how Young's job description at Rockstar revolved around producing "internal journalism" and handling location shoots used to inform and support the work of other departments, it would appear that the video editor was involved in the company's projects from their earliest stages of pre-production. And though there's no indication that Bully 3 ever left that development phase, Bully 2 was allegedly well underway by the time it was canceled circa 2010, with past insider reports suggesting that Rockstar New England managed to complete at least six hours of playable content before the project was scraped.
As for the next Grand Theft Auto installment, this newly unearthed insight seemingly confirms that GTA 6 has already been in development for almost twice as long as its predecessor. The wait for the much-anticipated game could now finally be nearing its end, as one credible leaker recently claimed that GTA 6 is targeting a holiday 2024 release.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is in development.