Jason Schreier 发布关于 Rockstar Games 打造 Grand Theft Auto VI 的新报告

Jason Schreier has shared a new report on Rockstar Games’ creation of Grand Theft Auto VI. Speaking with leadership, the report covers the launch delays, growth of the studio and the obstacles the team faced when creating the upcoming title, as well as the now infamous early leaks.

As befits what will likely be the biggest video game launch in history, the full report is huge; so we have broken it down into summary sections for you here. To read the whole thing, head to Bloomberg.

Research

Aaron Garbut, one of the heads of development at Rockstar, spoke with Schreier about why the game has taken so many years to come together. The team visited Miami several times starting way back in 2015 to enable them to create the detailed world of Vice City. Per Aaron, “Designing a club for a typical video game might mean generating a few nonplayable characters in different-colored shirts. In GTA VI, though, it means animating and scripting each individual patron, creating drinks, adding music, crafting lighting, matching the music to that lighting and composing all the other “layers and layers and layers of detail” that make a virtual club feel as authentic as possible.” The team even took helicopter rides and hung out with police as they attended callouts to make sure that GTA6 was as authentic as it could possibly be.

Studio Growth

Rockstar Games has almost doubled in size since 2018 and the launch of Red Dead Redemption II, with the staff now spread across twelve different offices. As the scope of GTA6 gained traction, leadership changed tack, and decided to delay the launch, rather than develop the game alongside RDR2. After it released, co-founder of Rockstar Dan Houser left the studio, and significant changes were made to senior management, with not the usual one – but three heads of development now overseeing the project. Controversy also affected the studio last year, when 34 employees were fired after being accused of sharing confidential information via a Discord server. The tribunal is still ongoing, but according to Schreier, should reach a resolution this month. Unionisation of the team is still on the cards.

Leaks

The early leaks of gameplay of GTA6 were the cause of Rockstar Games mandating all employees to be office-based instead of hybrid as well as being banned from accessing Rockstar’s servers when away from the office. Schreier states that this may change after the game’s launch next month, but until then, security around the game is as tight as it can be. Garbut talked with Schreier about how the leaks affected the team, saying “It feels like somebody’s wading through your dirty washing. It’s like they’re inside your head. You see your early work out there. Nobody’s ever supposed to see that. It’s really weirdly invasive. And so it’s quite hard to deal with on an emotional level.” 

Delays

The first trailer for GTA6 released all the way back in 2023, and promised players that the game would launch in 2025. According to Schreier, it was the developers themselves that pushed for the delays, first to May 2026, and then to the current scheduled release date of November 19th. Jennifer Kolbe, head of publishing at Rockstar talks about having to ask leadership at Take-Two to delay the launch. Per Kolbe, “I think he said, ‘You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding,’ But once we talked through why, he got it. And I think we are really lucky that he is as reasonable as he is, because a lot of people would say, ‘You’d just better figure out how to ship it.’ 

Schreiers article also states that Rockstar have now built the tools and engines needed and have brought together a team capable of delivering their next project in a much shorter timeframe.

How excited are you for the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI? Let us know in the comments below.

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