The gameplay details from Edge magazine's October 29 cover story have dominated the week, but the feature also contains the clearest account yet of how GTA 6 was actually made. Three things stand out: Rockstar's early Miami research began in 2015, the studio works in six to eight week milestones, and Sam Houser is still personally reviewing map, characters, story and milestone builds.
That first date is the one worth sitting with. In 2015, Red Dead Redemption 2 was still three years from release.
What the 2015 date tells us about GTA 6's development
Rockstar's public timeline has always had a gap in it. GTA 5 shipped in September 2013. GTA 6 was announced in December 2023. Everything in between has been reconstructed from job listings, interviews and the 2022 leak.
Edge now places the start of location research in 2015, before RDR2 was finished. That matters for two reasons.
First, it confirms GTA 6 was not a post-RDR2 project that began when the previous game shipped. It overlapped. Rockstar's studios were building a western and researching Florida at the same time, which is consistent with the long-running account of GTA 6's development history and with the reported early concept known as Project Americas, which was scoped down to Leonida alone.
Second, it reframes the delays. A game that started location research in 2015 and ships in November 2026 has been in some form of development for roughly 11 years. The two public delays, from 2025 to May 2026 and then to November 19, are the last 18 months of a process that has run for over a decade.
The six to eight week milestone rhythm
Edge reports that teams work in six to eight week milestones, with Sam Houser involved in milestone reviews.
This is one of the few windows anyone has had into Rockstar's internal production cadence, and it explains something about the game's consistency. A milestone every six to eight weeks is a relatively tight review loop for a project of this size. It means builds get looked at roughly eight times a year by the people setting direction, and it means features get judged in a playable state rather than on paper.
It also makes the scale claims more legible. The game's order of magnitude more interiors, 600,000 NPC animations and 170-plus animal species are not the output of one heroic push. They are the accumulation of around 70 to 90 milestone cycles.
Who actually built what
Edge's account of studio responsibilities is the most specific published so far:
| Studio or team | Reported contribution |
|---|---|
| Rockstar North | Lead development, Aaron Garbut on world and art |
| Los Angeles team | Writers, directors and producers building the population |
| Rockstar Toronto | Population and research work |
| Rockstar San Diego | Ambient and interactive events |
That is a different shape from the usual assumption that one lead studio does the game and the others provide support. Population, research, and ambient events are exactly the systems that make an open world feel inhabited, and all three are credited outside Rockstar North.
It also corroborates the earlier reporting on the Los Angeles team behind NPC behaviour, which had been the most surprising single staffing detail of the campaign. Having writers and directors, not just AI programmers, assigned to crowd behaviour is why a bystander in a hold-up has a personality rather than a panic animation.
Sam Houser's continuing role
Edge reports, via Rob Nelson, that Sam Houser remains involved in map, characters, story and milestone reviews.
This is a quietly important detail given how much of 2025 and 2026 has been spent on Rockstar's leadership story: Dan Houser left in 2020, Lazlow Jones left, and much of the coverage since has treated GTA 6 as the first mainline GTA made without the original creative core intact. A sentence placing Sam Houser in milestone reviews on map and story does not settle that argument, but it is the first direct statement in a long time that the studio president is working on the game rather than running the company that makes it.
Set against Aaron Garbut's role on the world and art direction, it describes a project with its original senior leadership largely in place on the creative side.
What this is and is not
It is worth being precise about sourcing. Edge issue 430 is a studio-sanctioned magazine feature written by Simon Parkin after a visit to Rockstar North and a 90-minute demo played by Rob Nelson. It is not a Rockstar Newswire post, and Rockstar has published no official development history, staffing breakdown or production timeline.
What is still unknown:
- When full production, as opposed to research, began
- How many people worked on the game and across how many studios
- What the actual budget is, which Take-Two has never confirmed and Jennifer Kolbe has denied is $1.5bn
- What was cut, beyond the reported grocery and fridge system
- Whether the 2015 research connects to the 2015-era map prototype seen in the 2022 leak material
Frequently Asked Questions
Did GTA 6 development start in 2015?
Edge reports that early Miami research began in 2015, before RDR2 was finished. Research is not the same as full production, and Rockstar has never stated when production proper began.
Is Sam Houser still working on GTA 6?
Per Edge, citing Rob Nelson, he remains involved in map, characters, story and milestone reviews. That is the most specific published statement on his role in several years.
How long has GTA 6 been in development?
From the 2015 research date to the November 19, 2026 release is roughly 11 years. GTA 5 shipped in September 2013, so the gap between mainline entries will be 13 years and two months.
Which Rockstar studios worked on GTA 6?
Edge credits Rockstar North as lead, a Los Angeles team for the population and writing, Toronto for population and research, and San Diego for ambient and interactive events. Rockstar has not published a full studio list.
The Bottom Line
The Edge feature's development notes are less shareable than a spike strip or a K-9 unit, but they are more clarifying. GTA 6 has been researched since 2015, built in six to eight week review cycles, populated by writers and directors rather than only engineers, and still passes across Sam Houser's desk at milestone reviews. Eleven years of that cadence is a better explanation of the game's scale claims than any single number in the feature.
Sources: Edge magazine issue 430 cover feature by Simon Parkin, October 29, 2026; GTABoom coverage of the Edge preview.