Ex GTA 6 dev details how long Rockstar has been working on the crime blockbuster

Ever since Rockstar shadow-dropped GTA 6 trailer 2 out of nowhere, the hype around the studio’s next game has reached a fever pitch. The next Grand Theft Auto has been delayed, sure, but to sweeten the news we’ve also got our best look at cutscenes, gameplay, and screenshots yet. Now, a former Rockstar developer walks us through all the new images we’ve been given, and reveals how long the game’s been in development.

Even with the Grand Theft Auto 6 release date, there’s still plenty about Rockstar’s fictional Florida for us to uncover. Trailer 2 is equal parts gameplay and cutscenes, with some absolutely stunning visuals welcoming us to the sun-soaked beaches we’re yet to explore. While we’re waiting for GTA 6, then, former Rockstar artist David O’Reilly has taken us through the open-world game‘s new screenshots – and shed some more light on its development.

“I was an environment artist at Rockstar for 12 years. I left Rockstar in 2023. So I worked on GTA 6 from 2018 to 2023, went onto it after we wrapped up on [Red Dead Redemption 2],” O’Reilly explains.

“It’s fascinating having a look at all this stuff, because as we’ve seen the lighting is so nice. They put some secret sauce on all that sort of stuff, because everything just looks so different than when I last saw it. Granted, most of my viewing of [GTA 6] was in debug mode, very much a development environment.”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? [This is] captured on a PS5, I think it’s going to be pretty indicative of what we’re going to see on the release,” O’Reilly adds (via TheGamer).

From O’Reilly’s own words, then, it sounds like Rockstar has been developing Grand Theft Auto 6 since 2018 at the latest. Red Dead Redemption 2 came out that same year after multiple delays, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Rockstar only started on GTA 6 in earnest once that game shipped.

Make sure you watch all of O’Reilly’s video, too, as they provide some excellent insight not just around GTA 6 itself, but the game development process as a whole.

If you want to get absorbed into Rockstar’s next world ahead of time, we’ve also put together all the GTA 6 voice actors and GTA 6 soundtrack info we have so far.

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