Last year saw the official reveal of Grand Theft Auto VI, much to the delight of the video game industry. As the first trailer ended, light at the end of the tunnel was presented with a release window of 2025. However, a new report reveals that production on the game is falling behind, which may lead Rockstar Games to delay the game to 2026.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Rockstar Games is pushing for employees to return to work five days week in the office. This mandate would start next month in April. Employees say that they were caught off guard and say they are frustrated because they feel like they are being pushed out after being hired remotely. Sources say that security and quality are the two main reasons for the mandate to return back to the office. This comes following GTA VI’s big leak back in 2022 with 50 minutes of footage pushed out on into the wild from more than 90 videos.
Sources told Kotaku that development on the game is starting to fall behind. They say that this has Rockstar leadership nervous and worried that GTA VI will miss its 2025 window and slip into 2026. At the moment, Rockstar is still aiming to release the game in Spring 2025 but sources say they aren’t sure that this is what’s going to happen. They believe a Fall 2025 release seems more plausible and feasible. A delay into 2026 is on the table and is a sort of “fallback plan” or “emergency” option if needed.
One employee has shared concerns that after improving on crunch over the past few years, the return to office could lead the company to fall back into it. “We’re concerned about going back to that,” said the Rockstar employee to Aftermath. “I’ve been through a couple of projects, both of which had crunch. The first one was extremely difficult. I had way less gray hair back then. … We want to continue the strides we’ve made as a company to remove that toxic culture.”
Another employee said “We’re quite worried that we’re gonna lose personnel over this or it will have a large negative impact on people’s health. “It’s a very anti-parent move. For people with disabilities, it’s a massive problem.”
“If you make it so that [people] can no longer work effectively at the company, then they have no choice but to leave,” said one Rockstar employee.
“It’s obviously cheaper because you avoid having to pay redundancies as a result of layoffs,” said another Rockstar employee, pointing to the options Sony was legally obligated to offer laid-off employees in the UK and Japan as an example. “If you can make it so that people will leave of their own accord, you don’t have to pay them.”
Sources noted that Rockstar historically waits until the “last minute” to make changes or alter plans. This means that the next trailer for the game – whenever that comes out – may not reflect a delay as the company continues development.