In an interview Rockstar reveals about the problems, delays and revelations, GTA 6 was originally Project Americas and covered large parts of the north and south of the country.

Rockstar Games has revealed that the original code name for Grand Theft Auto 6 was Project Americas, and that the game aims to cover large areas of land in the north and south of the country. Read more

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"You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding."

Rockstar Games has revealed that the original code name for Grand Theft Auto 6 was Project Americas, and that the game aims to cover large areas of land in the north and south of the country.

This information comes from an extensive interview with Rockstar in Bloomberg, which reveals the beginning of the GTA 6 project, as well as notable moments since then: delays, game leaks, trailer releases and more.

Bloomberg heard that Rockstar North studio head Rob Nelson took a group of employees to Miami for the game's first research trip in 2015, and that Project Americas — as the game was known at the time — "intended to represent large swathes of land across North and South America, before narrowing down to Miami and the surrounding areas. The original idea was to develop the game alongside Red Dead Redemption 2, but as the scope and ambition of the Western project grew, Project Americas was set back several years. was driven

But after the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, many things changed. Rockstar will nearly double in size from 2,441 employees to 4,711 across 12 offices, the article noted. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser, who wrote many of the previous GTA games, also left the company, prompting the promotions of Nelson, Aaron Garbutt, and Phil Hooker, who stepped into lead development roles.

By 2019, Rockstar had the skeleton of GTA 6 and the dual character hook of Jason and Lucia living out their crime fantasy together, but the finer details and mechanical intricacies of the game took longer, especially when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and forced people to work from home. "Trying to keep a team together like that is really challenging," Nelson said.

Red Dead Redemption 2 also introduced Rockstar as a company that worked with extreme levels of crunch - something Tom Phillips revealed in an investigation for Eurogamer. In a Bloomberg interview with Jennifer Kolb, president of Rockstar Publishing, Rockstar confirmed this, saying it was a real moment for Rockstar to look at itself.

"We all looked at each other and said we're not doing this anymore," he added. It wasn't perfect, but it's certainly better than Red Dead 2. And I don't want to get into arguments with individual teams or individuals. But I think we did things differently and I'm proud of that."

Bloomberg is reported to have spoken to "dozens" of Rockstar employees who expressed "mostly positive feelings" about Kolbe's remarks, and confirmed improvements in areas such as job difficulty and the removal of abusive or difficult managers. However, Rockstar is currently embroiled in an employment tribunal in Scotland after unceremoniously sacking 34 employees - 31 of them from its Rockstar North office - alleging misconduct. It was outrageous, but the fired employees called it a union repudiation. We cover the court hearings as they happen. It is expected to arrive at the end of the week.

As GTA 6 began to take shape, Rockstar suffered one of its biggest setbacks, as a phishing attack in 2022 gained access to the company's Slack and leaked unfinished footage of the game. Aaron Garbutt responded: "I feel like someone is going through your dirty laundry. It's like they're inside your head. You see your early work there. No one is ever going to see it. It's really weirdly offensive. So it's very difficult to deal with on an emotional level."

As development progressed, it became clear that Rockstar needed more time to complete the game. The first GTA 6 trailer released in 2023 promised that the game would be released in 2025, but Rockstar is moving that date to May 2026 to give it more time. Then Rockstar realized they couldn't finish the game on that date. Kolbe recalled calling Strauss Zelnick, the chairman of Rockstar owner Take-Two, to tell him the news.

"I think he said, 'You're kidding,'" Kolbe recalled. Please tell me you're kidding." "But when we talked about why, he understood. And I think we're really lucky that he makes as much sense as he does, because a lot of people would say, "You better figure out how to send it." And we've been really fortunate not to find ourselves in that spot, because that happens to a lot of teams and we've all played those games. Not great."

Rockstar did not comment on the leak of GTA 6 footage by the group or the people known as Cyberleek during the interview. The article closed with Rockstar promising that the next release wouldn't take another eight years because "the engine, tools and team we've built over the course of this project allow us to do things faster," said Phil Hooker. "We basically changed a lot of things in this project," Garbutt added. But now it's over, we're not tearing it up."

GTA 6 is finally set to release on November 19th for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X, with the PC version reportedly coming in the first quarter of next year.