GTA6 NOW » Jason Schreier’s Bloomberg GTA 6 story

Jason Schreier’s Bloomberg GTA 6 story

Official Grand Theft Auto VI cover art — Image: Rockstar Games.

Bloomberg’s 14 October feature is about how GTA 6 was made, not new features: why it took 13 years, why it slipped twice, and what Rockstar learned Reported. Top lines: NPC workload drove the first delay, Rockstar denies crunch, the budget is estimated above US$1 billion, and the next game should be quicker. Quick version: FAQ. New here? Start here.

Last updated: 14 October 2026, 6:57 a.m. ET. Bloomberg published Jason Schreier’s feature “The Making of Grand Theft Auto VI” on 14 October 2026 at about 6:00 a.m. ET. Bloomberg’s page blocked our requests on 14 October, so we read it through write-ups: GamesRadar+, TheGamer and IGN. On 25 October we checked the lines below against the full text reprinted by The News (Pakistan). Every line below is Reported. Where two outlets print the same fact or quote, we mark it “Reported · 2 outlets agree”. Bloomberg also posted a video; we could not open it. As of 6:57 a.m. ET, IGN had a headline on the story we could not open, and Kotaku, VGC, Eurogamer and The Verge had no write-up. Bloomberg also posted a video, “To Make GTA VI, Rockstar Had To Remake Itself”.

Reported
Announced for 14 October.

Reported
About development and Rockstar’s culture.

Reported
Published 14 October, about 6:00 a.m. ET.

What the feature says

Detail	As reported	Label
Access	Rockstar gave Schreier a day at Rockstar North with Jennifer Kolbe, Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut, Phil Hooker and Jonathon Ashcroft. Titles differ between write-ups: GamesRadar+ calls Hooker technical director; Bloomberg says Nelson, Garbut and Hooker all received the title head of development. IGN calls Hooker and Garbut co-heads of development; VGC calls them studio heads.	Reported Bloomberg
Code name	“Project Americas”, a plan covering parts of North and South America. The first Miami research trip was in 2015. Bloomberg first reported the code name in 2022, so the name is not new; the 2015 trip date is.	Reported · 2 outlets agree GamesRadar+ · TheGamer
Staff	2,441 employees in 2018; 4,711 as of August, by Rockstar’s figures (IGN). IGN says 12 offices; GamesRadar+ says 11 Rockstar studios. We don’t pick one.	Reported IGN
Delays	Kolbe called Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to ask for both delays. On the second call, she recalls: “I think he said, ‘You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding’”. Then: “Once we talked through why, he got it.”	Reported GamesRadar+
Couple play	Nelson, recalling staff who pushed for the couple systems: “This is a game about a couple. They have to be a couple.”	Reported Bloomberg
Crunch	Kolbe says the game was not finished on crunch. After Red Dead Redemption 2, she recalls: “We all looked at each other and said, ‘We’re not doing it again like this.’” Per GamesRadar+, new policies gave paid time off for extra hours and sometimes extra pay. Kolbe: “It’s not been perfect,” but “It’s certainly better than Red Dead 2 was.” GamesRadar+ notes some employees alleged in July that crunch is “built into” contracts.	Reported GamesRadar+. No outside audit Not confirmed.
Why the 2022 leak hurt	Aaron Garbut on the September 2022 leak: “It feels like somebody’s wading through your dirty washing.” And: “It’s really weirdly invasive.” Leaked material is not covered here.	Reported · VICE
Union	Kolbe: “If they want a union, they will have a union.”	Reported Bloomberg
Cost	More than US$1 billion is Bloomberg’s estimate. Rockstar only denies passing US$1.5 billion.	Estimate
Online	Bloomberg expects it in 2027. Not a Rockstar date.	Estimate
Next game	Phil Hooker: “The engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly.” VGC adds: “I feel confident that we can build on top of this and go more sideways than upwards to build more compelling content.”	Reported · 4 outlets agree. TheGamer · GamesRadar+ · IGN · VGC (TheGamer prints a comma after “the tools”)
Garbut on the engine	Aaron Garbut: “We foundationally changed a lot of stuff on this project. But now it’s done, and we’re not going to rip it apart.” Also: “The last 30 years has been practice for where we got to here.”	Reported VGC
GTA III to Vice City (explainer)	IGN: “Bloomberg compares the release of GTA 6 to GTA 3, in that the first 3D GTA game paved the way for the quickfire release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which launched a year later in 2002.” VGC: “There’s certainly no suggestion, however, that Rockstar’s next game will arrive anywhere near that soon.”	Reported IGN · VGC
Los Angeles office	Rob Nelson on the NPC workload: “The projections they were giving us were horrifying.” Rockstar opened a Los Angeles office for pedestrians. GameSpot: “The numbers were so concerning that they were a large reason for the first GTA 6 delay.” Explainer.	Reported · 2 outlets agree. Insider Gaming · GameSpot
Why the date moved	Phil Hooker: “I think when it became apparent that some areas weren’t going to make it, that’s when we decided to make the shift of date.” And: “We could hit that schedule, but it won’t be the game we want to make.”	Reported Wccftech · GamesRadar+ (second line)
“Project Americas” and the RDR2 pause	Per GamesRadar+ on Bloomberg: Rob Nelson says Rockstar staff flew to Miami for a first research trip in 2015, when the game was code-named “Project Americas” with parts of North and South America on the map. GTA 6 was pushed back for several years so Red Dead Redemption 2 could be finished; Nelson says the work would “pay off when we get to the game.” Most staff across Rockstar’s 11 studios now work on one project at a time.	Reported · GamesRadar+. The original map plan was never shown Not confirmed.
Story skeleton by 2019	By the end of 2019 the story skeleton was set: Jason and Lucia as a criminal couple robbing their way through a fictional Miami. The pandemic then stopped performance capture entirely, and by 2022, per Hooker, enough pieces were in place (via DualShockers, 14 October 2026).	Reported
“Never fully settled”	Per Insider Gaming on Bloomberg: Phil Hooker says the delays were not for big dramatic reasons but because parts did not come together in time, there is no strict blueprint, and things changed even “within the last few months.” His two-hour playtest drifted from a story mission into a fender-bender, a store robbery, a police chase and a car to fence.	Reported · Insider Gaming
Two hours off-mission	Bloomberg, quoted by Wccftech: Hooker was heading to a story mission in a late build when a road-rage NPC rammed him, and he ended up robbing a store, stealing cars and casing a compound. Hooker: “I remember the sheer fun of it.”	Reported Wccftech
Beer and sandwiches	Rockstar debated whether players would carry a case of beer to the counter, or buy ingredients for a stat-boosting sandwich. Schreier: “Making each of these decisions required a lot of guesswork because so much of the game wasn’t yet finished”.	Reported GameSpot
Couple activities	Jason can text Lucia to meet up; the pair can walk in a park holding hands, hit the gym, or rob a store together. Nelson recalls the team arguing: “This is a game about a couple. They have to be a couple.” Also: building a nightclub means animating and scripting patrons, creating drinks, adding music and coordinating lighting.	Reported VICE · romance
2022 turning point	By 2022 the game came into focus. Hooker: “You go through a period where things don’t work, but you see snippets”.	Reported GameSpot
Errors in follow-ups	Wccftech mentions “the eventual November 18 delay”; the date Rockstar printed is 19 November. Wccftech also calls Aaron Garbut an “artist”; IGN and VGC call him co-head of development / studio head.	Official date · correction

What he announced

Detail	As reported	Label
Date	“his article about GTA 6 will be published tomorrow, October 14”	Reported EGW
Topic	“the challenges behind GTA VI’s development, how Rockstar’s company culture has changed over the past decade, and why the game is taking so long to make”	Reported EGW
Not in it	“Don’t expect a big list of new gameplay features.”	Reported EGW
PC	EGW says Schreier said the piece is not connected to the PC report “and that he hasn’t heard anything about it.”	Reported EGW
Seen the game	EGW says he played it but Rockstar “did not allow him to share his impressions publicly.”	Reported EGW

What Schreier reported before

Reported 2 May 2025, on the first delay: “Nobody I’ve talked to at Rockstar has believed Fall 2025 was a real window for a very long time now.”
Reported Early 2026, on the November date: “this [November 2026] feels a little bit more real than Fall 2025 did.”
Reported 2020, Kotaku: a Rockstar staffer said “It does seem like a healthier culture overall.”

What we don’t know yet

Not confirmed The full Bloomberg text, read by us. Bloomberg blocked our requests on 14 October.
Not confirmed The real budget. Rockstar will not say.

Quick answers

Is the Bloomberg GTA 6 story out?

Reported Yes, since about 6:00 a.m. ET on 14 October.

Will it show new gameplay?

Reported No, per Schreier: it is about development, not features.

Is it about the PC version?

Reported No, per Schreier.

Sources: GamesRadar+ on the delays · GamesRadar+ on Project Americas · DualShockers · GamesRadar+, 14 Oct 2026 · TheGamer, 14 Oct 2026 · IGN, 14 Oct 2026 · Bloomberg · The News (reprint) · EGW, 13 Oct 2026 · Kotaku and Bloomberg pieces from our research file.

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Latest, 20 October 2026

What did Jason Schreier add after his Bloomberg story?

Reported In a 19 October YouTube video (Schreier’s video), Schreier said Rockstar wanted a weapon system “more like Red Dead” and spent “months, if not years, trying a million different things that would replace the weapon wheel”, then went back to a weapon wheel, per TechRadar. Rockstar has not commented. More: Bloomberg breakdown.

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Weapon wheel: Rockstar tried a million ways to replace GTA 6’s weapon wheel.