Rockstar Games' Future

[CM1]

Remember games like Bully and its proposed sequel? Agent which never materialized?

 

We all know Rockstar has been through some arduous and trying times from 2013 to present, but my honest advice is once GTA VI goes gold, maybe they need to deeply look within once again and streamline their operations for future projects? That is if they desire to do IPs other than Red Dead and GTA.

 

RDR 2 and GTA VI unfortunately came together during some of their most challenging times, that everyone sympathizes with them on their struggles to get them done to perfection. That doesn't mean this should remain the norm after VI is completed.

 

Great games take time to make, but not up to 10-15 years without internal problems influencing that.

 

In my opinion, they should attempt to identify and reduce/eradicate the controllable factors which contribute to any bottlenecks. I am not suggesting they encourage heavy crunch, but there has to be a more reasonable middle ground going forward AFTER VI. A sweetspot which gives them enough time to create something great, but not to the point of borderline infinity with each new project, where it balloons up to that estimate I gave.

 

Redacted portion

 

Spoiler

Being their latest release, I'll mention how RDR2's problems were known to a degree, to be a consequence of flippant 11th hour decision-making, which should've been way better managed earlier in the process or scrapped if too hindering. That game took over 60 months to produce out of 7 years and 9 months total to plan & develop in an office setting. This 60 month production effort took an additional year to complete, partly because of Dan Houser insisting on black bars very late in the process (in early 2017) and then additional assets creeping in through early 2018, resulting in another delay from circa May 2018 to October 2018 release ultimately.

 

A new Rockstar title planned out more carefully and not subject to the same operational chaos as RDR2 and GTA VI, should be able to be produced within a 3-5 year window (varies on scale) after VI releases.

 

The flippant notion that because X previous game took 11 years to plan and 7 years to produce in the midst of chaos, means the next and the next one should continue snowballing. Then now take up to 15 years to create from pre-prod and 11 years to produce (full prod), is tone deaf insanity and honestly loses the plot in how companies are supposed to operate. No one operates within a vacuum, no matter how great they are.

 

After the pressure from VI dies down from going gold and shipping, if beginning another title or even already entering full production on their "next-next" release (secretly in pre-prod?), an organizational effort needs to be made to keep scale within reason.

 

If they do not, I'm sure it's great to coast off of the financial success that are V, Online, RDR2, and VI/O, but on the creative side of things one starts to wonder.

 

Eventually it will challenge their creative edge, the day a more competent competitor emerges and edges them out in a leaner fashion (ie 6 years to produce, 8 years to create), if they start getting into the realm of 12+ year long Rockstar projects with full production length of 8+ years. The Driver series of yore once helped to pioneer 3D games of this nature, only to end up being surpassed by Rockstar (nee DMA Design), because R* edged them out in being quicker and beating them at their owm game.

 

Before anyone suggests how impossible this theory is and that they'll just be fine with VI success, that's not how they work anyway.

 

As successful as GTA V and Online have been, they didn't rest on their laurels. They got back to work, but were likely handicapped by issues with RDR2 production delaying an immediate production shift to GTA VI. Then other problems crept up as RDR2 released. That's fully understood.

 

Ideally, R* needs to get a handle on what any of their recurring internal issues are, so it doesn't choke their future flexibility as a firm.

 

No one should expect the output of  R* circa 2004 or even 2009-10, but something between let's say early 2010s R* and today's situation of 7+ year gaps, should suffice. Something new every 3-5 years, whether other IPs, Red Dead, or "GTA Something".

 

If it's possible, start pre-production of Title B with a small team in parallel as another major focus "Title A" carefully gets through production. Once that Title A ends development or releases, ease into full production of the Title B for 3-5 years. Not 7-10 years of full production.

 

I say this because of what was actually successful with GTA V (4.75 years; 3 yrs FProd), attempted with RDR2 (7.75 years; 5 yrs FProd) and messily untenable with GTA VI for mostly understandable reasons.

 

The flagship titles in RD and GTA working with 7 years (or less) of total time, 5 years (or less) full production, with 2 years of overlap (i.e. one is in PP, the other in FP) on future sequels might be a happy medium?

 

I believe it's possible for them to regroup after VI and do this next time around, without overwhelming factors like a global pandemic, (alleged Project Americas) reboot, departure of key personnel, and massive organizational restructure to eliminate crunch.

 

What do you all think?

 

Spoiler

This was in response to casual commentary I see, which often assumes and even welcomes the idea, Rockstar’s next IP (excluding Remedy's LA Noire) should even take longer than this one did. As someone who is quite happy with TTWO stock increases since last autumn against November 2023, I ideally want them to buckle down, eliminate waste, and have more creative output beyond GTA (VI) again.

 

Edited January 19 by CM1

[Ogivaldelta]

I agree that a lot of AAA development is way overbloated, its bad for both devs and the playerbase of their titles if games start taking 7-8 years from prepoduction to release.

Honestly, not even R* can sustain a global collection of studios on a 1 title per decade release schedule, no matter how successful the online is.

[CM1]

9 minutes ago, Ogivaldelta said:

I agree that a lot of AAA development is way overbloated, its bad for both devs and the playerbase of their titles if games start taking 7-8 years from prepoduction to release.

Honestly, not even R* can sustain a global collection of studios on a 1 title per decade release schedule, no matter how successful the online is.

I'm glad you understand my point. I think 7 years total being invested on bigger games, while cleverly using 2 of those years as a headstart during production of another upcoming title, so that when the first one releases, only 5 years remains at most until their next product.

 

For smaller IPs, maybe spend 3-4 years full production and 5ish years total, so with project overlap it comes out to 3 years between other titles. I'm not okay with the idea, that because GTA VI likely took 11 years since 2014 to plan and 6-7 years since 2018-19 to produce, the next set of games should increase that factor.

 

They should really treat what went wrong with RDR2 and GTA VI as an exception and not a staple

Edited January 19 by CM1

[Exsanguination]

It is what it is... things can't go backwards...development time takes much longer now for these type of games.

 

I think GTA VI will be the last "hoorah"  so to speak.  

 

It's been a good run, and the best has yet to be released. 

 

 

[AfroUchiha]

46 minutes ago, Exsanguination said:

I think GTA VI will be the last "hoorah"  so to speak.  

 

Lol no. 

 

Might be for you if you're 90.

[CM1]

53 minutes ago, Exsanguination said:

It is what it is... things can't go backwards...development time takes much longer now for these type of games.

 

I think GTA VI will be the last "hoorah"  so to speak.  

 

It's been a good run, and the best has yet to be released. 

 

 

I wouldn't say that yet.

 

Which other game has taken 10+ years to develop and 6-7 years to produce under normal circumstances? None really. Although 2014 is only alleged as a start date, I'm convinced there's strong credibility to it. Four years of that was restricted by RDR2. 2 of 7 years was affected by COVID. 18ish months of that 7 years was affected by restructuring away from crunch. Reboot time is unknown.

 

Under normal circumstances, I'd like to see what Rockstar can achieve for once going into the future. GTA V was mostly developed under normal circumstances, while unfortunately the most recent 2 games will not have been due to both external and internal events.

 

RDR2 was plagued with so much internal strife, many people left. Similar for VI thus far. Sure it won't get drastically faster, but I think under more stable circumstances Rockstar can match 80-90% of the time spent on RDR2 (delays included) and end up still coming out strong on a follow up to GTA VI or RDR2, provided it's a smooth operation. On a smaller project, do 70% of that.

 

The amount of time likely spent on VI will never be normal, because of the pandemic being in a once in a lifetime event and being held up by the development (hell) of another project from 2014 to 2018.

 

Edited January 19 by CM1

[Nzoth]

On 1/18/2025 at 8:42 PM, CM1 said:

I wouldn't say that yet.

 

Which other game has taken 10+ years to develop and 6-7 years to produce under normal circumstances? None really. Although 2014 is only alleged as a start date, I'm convinced there's strong credibility to it. Four years of that was restricted by RDR2. 2 of 7 years was affected by COVID. 18ish months of that 7 years was affected by restructuring away from crunch. Reboot time is unknown.

 

Under normal circumstances, I'd like to see what Rockstar can achieve for once going into the future. GTA V was mostly developed under normal circumstances, while unfortunately the most recent 2 games will not have been due to both external and internal events.

 

RDR2 was plagued with so much internal strife, many people left. Similar for VI thus far. Sure it won't get drastically faster, but I think under more stable circumstances Rockstar can match 80-90% of the time spent on RDR2 (delays included) and end up still coming out strong on a follow up to GTA VI or RDR2, provided it's a smooth operation. On a smaller project, do 70% of that.

 

The amount of time likely spent on VI will never be normal, because of the pandemic being in a once in a lifetime event and being held up by the development (hell) of another project from 2014 to 2018.

 

 

One theory that I have for why GTA VI took so long is because I think the game has been changed a few times, there is no way Rockstar in 2013 was thinking about releasing a game for PS5 in 2025 if you tell that to a CEO or investor you are fired or you delay that game for so long because of internal issues you are also fired, you see in the trailer, there is a lot of social media especially something similar to TikTok, when did TikTok become soooo popular? during covid, before covid social media was popular but not to the extent that it is today, I think they went into full production in 2018

[MrBreak16]

1 hour ago, Nzoth said:

 

One theory that I have for why GTA VI took so long is because I think the game has been changed a few times, there is no way Rockstar in 2013 was thinking about releasing a game for PS5 in 2025 if you tell that to a CEO or investor you are fired or you delay that game for so long because of internal issues you are also fired, you see in the trailer, there is a lot of social media especially something similar to TikTok, when did TikTok become soooo popular? during covid, before covid social media was popular but not to the extent that it is today, I think they went into full production in 2018

The development builds found in the leaks indicate that the earliest build of the game likely dates from 2019, so I imagine that’s around where they would have started full production.

Edited January 22 by MrBreak16

[el carlitos]

On 1/19/2025 at 3:17 AM, Ogivaldelta said:

Honestly, not even R* can sustain a global collection of studios on a 1 title per decade release schedule, no matter how successful the online is.

I think you are wrong here. I doubt anyone at R* or T2 anticipated the immense success of GTA Online. Ten years later, it's still receiving updates.

Had GTA Online fizzled out after a couple of years, I'm sure we'd have seen the next mainline GTA title much sooner. Therefore, the timeline for the next major R* game release will heavily depend on the future success of GTA 6 Online and it could lead to another decade-long wait, while a decline in Online's popularity might accelerate the development of the next game.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, el carlitos said:

Had GTA Online fizzled out after a couple of years, I'm sure we'd have seen the next mainline GTA title much sooner.

 

"much" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here IMO.

 

The long time between new R* games isn't really unique at all to R*, development times have become long across the board. What used to take 2-3 years now takes 4-6 and that's true for most AAA studios. So the idea that GTA VI would already be out by now is iffy given RDR2 released in 2018 and of course covid and lockdown happened, which seemed to hurt R*'s development quite a bit for a period.

 

I don't think there's anything particularly alarming with how VI has took that's specific to R*, I think it's just general AAA development right now. Asian studios are getting games out quicker but they do a lot of asset and system/mechanic reuse across their games, where as individual R* games are more bespoke which is something fans expect.

[Spider-Vice]

Because this is more about R* in general, I've moved this to the general R* section. Folks looking for it in the VI section have a redirect link in there.

[wqx]

2 hours ago, el carlitos said:

Had GTA Online fizzled out after a couple of years, I'm sure we'd have seen the next mainline GTA title much sooner.

No, definitly not, because we would have gotten the single player DLCs which were planned and ultimately scraped for GTA Online due to its succes and the GTA IV's single player DLCs not being a super hit compared to what GTAO already delivered in revenue.

[CM1]

On 1/22/2025 at 5:23 AM, Nzoth said:

 

One theory that I have for why GTA VI took so long is because I think the game has been changed a few times, there is no way Rockstar in 2013 was thinking about releasing a game for PS5 in 2025 if you tell that to a CEO or investor you are fired or you delay that game for so long because of internal issues you are also fired, you see in the trailer, there is a lot of social media especially something similar to TikTok, when did TikTok become soooo popular? during covid, before covid social media was popular but not to the extent that it is today, I think they went into full production in 2018

 

I agree, they weren't, but they also were expecting RDR2 to release around late 2016 at the beginning of full production.

 

They started full production around 2018 for Project Americas, but me thinks that didn't go smoothly and got reboot in the process. Dan Houser really sounded like he was suffering from writer's block or a bottleneck of some sort in October 2018.

 

Project Americas didn't work out and he was either trying to push for it again or figure out how to tackle modern day USA. Just 5-6 months later, he went on sabbatical and then left permanently in March 2020.

 

As he was approaching his sabbatical, they had already hired Lucia's actress to work on GTA Online in early-Spring 2019 and probably cast her as Lucia not too long afterwards.

 

She was very busy up until 2019 and then stopped making appearances in anything else production wise from January 2020. I can imagine she started playing as Lucia in mid-late 2019, meaning full production was in complete swing by that point and prevented her from accepting other projects.

 

With things on track with FP and main characters being captured by mid-late 2019, they've been at it for some +/- 5.5 years. So without a pandemic and other massive internal issues, they should be able to have quicker turnaround time next go around and hold the line at 5 years max with FP.

On 1/22/2025 at 7:15 AM, MrBreak16 said:

The development builds found in the leaks indicate that the earliest build of the game likely dates from 2019, so I imagine that’s around where they would have started full production.

Thanks, but I cannot ascertain on my end how.

 

I am trying to decipher the build numbering in relation to date, but other than the file metadata, I cannot...

On 1/22/2025 at 7:31 AM, el carlitos said:

I think you are wrong here. I doubt anyone at R* or T2 anticipated the immense success of GTA Online. Ten years later, it's still receiving updates.

Had GTA Online fizzled out after a couple of years, I'm sure we'd have seen the next mainline GTA title much sooner. Therefore, the timeline for the next major R* game release will heavily depend on the future success of GTA 6 Online and it could lead to another decade-long wait, while a decline in Online's popularity might accelerate the development of the next game.

GTA Online has nothing to do with Rockstar’s focus on GTA VI. The collective resources required by RDR2 from Summer 2013 to October 1, 2018, are the primary reason. After that, VI was briefly hurt by some running changes and internally clashing allegedly. The last 5-6 years have been spent producing VI, since RDR2 resources let up in late 2018.

 

As enriching as GTA Online is, they are not letting it stop them from working on VI. If that was the case, the ambition of VI likely would've been significantly diluted in favor of less impressive product, released years ago. RDR2 wouldn't have been delayed either, because the leeway given to Dan Houser on his demands would've been rejected in favor of releasing RDR2 in Late 2017 and fighting to release VI by 2021-2022.

On 1/22/2025 at 7:37 AM, Jason said:

 

"much" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here IMO.

 

The long time between new R* games isn't really unique at all to R*, development times have become long across the board. What used to take 2-3 years now takes 4-6 and that's true for most AAA studios. So the idea that GTA VI would already be out by now is iffy given RDR2 released in 2018 and of course covid and lockdown happened, which seemed to hurt R*'s development quite a bit for a period.

 

I don't think there's anything particularly alarming with how VI has took that's specific to R*, I think it's just general AAA development right now. Asian studios are getting games out quicker but they do a lot of asset and system/mechanic reuse across their games, where as individual R* games are more bespoke which is something fans expect.

Grand Theft Auto VI is well understood to not be normal circumstances, as well as AAA games taking much longer than they used to produce.

 

Going forward, the curiosity is what will be considered normal circumstances?

 

My intent is to make it clear, this game's significant development time should not be used as a new metric for another successive project taking even longer, which might be developed under much more stable and better circumstances. Applies to RDR2 to a lesser degree.

 

One shouldn't be expecting another RD or GTA, to increase the lead time of VI, to stratospheric proportions such as 13 years to plan from pre-production and 9 years to produce from full production.

 

Production on a better organized, less chaotic schedule should be taking lesser time than VI did, on what I estimate to be 6-7 years at completion against a likely 11+ years in planning since supposedly 2014.

 

If Rockstar without a pandemic and chaotic internal strife can hold the line on lead time, there's no reason they can't produce 2-3 new titles within 10 years. 1 small new/resurrected title amongst 1-2 established big ones.

 

Taking 4-5 years to produce a new major title with 7ish years of development behind that total, is more than generous under normal circumstances. A smaller title can take 70% of that. Increasing time above VI, by taking 10+ years and moderately more than half of that total time on production, is not normal and shouldn't considered as such.

 

Full production of an AAA+ shouldn't be taking significantly more than half a decade under normal circumstances. In the entertainment industries, there is a time limit and Rockstar keeps pushing it instead of buckling down at some point.

 

I get 3 : ~5  years of GTA V being inadequate now, but needing 8 : 12 next time around would be ridiculous.

 

I hope the game's long production does not date aspects of the game environment, from hard assets which remained unchanged from early production. It's why movies avoid taking 2-3+ years to film, because it's risky for similar reasons.

 

The scene even mentioning Jay Norris was captured 8 years after the events of GTAV in 2013, yet by when the game releases it will be over 12 years instead. Imagine specific pop culture references? This time around, hopefully they can slide around that somehow, but future games taking much longer than this? They have to get that under control.

[Jason]

If your proposal is to develop smaller titles then sure, but what people largely want and expect from R* is the bigger titles.

 

Mismanagement is a reason why game time has increased but the next project being better managed is easier said than done, video game development inherently has some wasted time because you'll try things or do things that won't work, get cut, have to be changed etc. That's a byproduct of any creative industry.

 

If there was an easy solution to the development time issue we see in AAA then studios would be flocking to it, but as is there's no solution that doesn't come with cons. Smaller titles won't meet the expectations from fans, and a game with less cut content or freedom to change stuff that isn't working will be less ambitious and ultimately not reach the quality bar people expect.

[CM1]

I frustratingly lost a very well outlined response from an unexpected reboot and finding out the site editor failed to save and thus deleted half of the draft, citing many sources and comparative examples, to the point I'm tentatively not going to redraft my points again. 

[nearmiss1992]

After GTA 6 I don't see any other title coming, maybe RDR3? I'm not so sure because every time a new GTA comes it has to surpass the previous title in some way or another

 

SA > IV > V > VI > ????

 

And of course that will require a lot of time, it's been 12 years since GTA V came out, I think what someone said here about GTA 6 being rewritten makes sense since there's no way a game could take that long unless its development has been poorly managed

[CM1]

On 2/4/2025 at 10:55 AM, nearmiss1992 said:

After GTA 6 I don't see any other title coming, maybe RDR3? I'm not so sure because every time a new GTA comes it has to surpass the previous title in some way or another

 

SA > IV > V > VI > ????

 

And of course that will require a lot of time, it's been 12 years since GTA V came out, I think what someone said here about GTA 6 being rewritten makes sense since there's no way a game could take that long unless its development has been poorly managed

Thank you. As that's my issue particularly right there. I made some well organized points previously in response t Jason, but the site post editor worked against me and deleted half of it upon an abrupt device reboot.

 

@nearmiss1992, understand that this isn't directly targeted at you, but anyone opposing my argument being made.

 

What went wrong with the GTA VI at likely 11 years to create and 6-7 years to produce, shouldn't be relied on as "normal circumstances" and that perhaps Rockstar might be able to reduce lead time by 20% on an equivalent project next time. Bigger in scale, but perhaps more stable circumstances allow for slightly faster turnaround times.

 

If they learn from what went wrong during GTA VI development, the tide can change for the better.

 

I believe like the internal issues with RDR2 development mostly have been fixed on GTA VI, but they ended up dealing with new issues such as a last minute pre-production reboot (not committing to one consistent story/vision after 4-5 years), COVID, problems with Work From Home in early 2024 coinciding with suspicious May announcement of Fall 2025 and simultaneous decline of FY2025 expectations with matching inverse growth for FY2026 = hidden delay.

 

If external bottlenecks like a global pandemic and internal ones such as knowing to choose a solid vision early on and be consistent to avoid late reboots, ensuring employee arrangements are settled to the mutual satisfaction of everyone early enough are not of consequence post-VI, what took 6-7 years on GTA VI can maybe take 5.5 years max. Maybe overall project, 7 years max. Pre production of VI was stretched by a likely inability to shift priority towards it due to RDR2 production between 2014-18.

 

Doing this right next go-around, you cut down on gaps between games you want to release. Right now, they had to source Remedy to do the new LA Noire title and ditto for other stuff like GTA DE and new Max Payne coming up via other studios. Rockstar employees no longer work on other titles like they used to, when all studios were required to work on RDR2 or GTAVI at the same time.

 

Trying to juggle turnaround time better, with 10-20% reduction in lead time against VI isn't impossible to target, since those circumstances weren't normal. Luckily most of us are not buying the defeatist perspective, each new Rockstar game MUST automatically take longer to make than the next, while casually ignoring the significant external factors which ballooned GTA VI's gestation time

This isn't like comparing RDR1 to GTAV or GTAV to RDR2. Those were not produced during COVID.

 

RDR1 took longer to produce than GTA V, as did LA Noire, because GTAV production was way better organized than those two. Ditto for GTA IV. GTA VI suffered as much as it has, due to a variety of issues which might not rear an ugly head.

 

If "Rockstar Studios" has managed to be secretly in pre-production of another game in recent years, are waiting on production of VI to conclude before producing it, here's what I think.

 

I think they could manage a 2028-2029 release on such a new product, IF less ambitious and less fiscally and resource intensive as the two juggernauts in GTA and Red Dead. If the next Red Dead product, 5ish years of production might suffice and a 2030ish release date.

 

Afterward explore production of GTA VII or another title for a 2035-36ish release. Instead turning 7 years of production alone into 9-10+ years would be a bad move, once GTA VI loses relevance 15 years out.

 

I state this because Leslie Benzies' "45 years worth of ideas" comment is starting to look rather limited in scope, per what their schedule has turned into...(3 GTA games?)

 

They need to slightly reduce their lead times from VI down to reason. I'm glad we agree, as no amount of excuses from anyone can sway me on that outlook, when no one is asking them to make new games every year or 2 like CoD or Fifa. Something new from Rockstar every 3-5 years is more than fair. Whether big or small. If only big stuff like GTA going forward, make it 4-5 year gaps between via pre-prod/full prod overlap. Not 7-10 years with nothing in between.

 

Some of us do want to see HD interpretations of other US cities and if they're worsening lead times beyond GTA VI's understandable long gestation or too cocky to grow the franchise beyond Leonida and Greater Los Santos, how many of us will be dead by the time that happens?

 

Las Venturas in 2042? San Fierro in 2061? Carcer City in 2083? Liberty City in 2100? I mean, come on! Utter BS! Know your limits! Eventually the Houser brothers will retire or pass on, how much does Sam want to get done in the next 25 years? 1 more GTA only in GTA VII?

 

My elaborate points made here should be clear enough, without deliberately being misinterpreted as me asking for the moon and the stars. Rockstar took 5 years to create RDR1 and it took Team Bondi 7 years on LA Noire (2011), yet 4.75 years on GTA V with better technology and budget. I am being VERY reasonable here, if on V they were able to reduce development time against previous releases and come out with a record setter.

[CM1]

And to add, any extra time spent on RDR2 was being similarly due to extended pre-production, by the additional year spent on GTA V production from October 2012 to August 2013.

 

If RDR2 spent January 2011 to Q3 2012 in pre-production and then moved to full production in late 2012, on a tighter schedule and no indecisive last minute changes such as "cinematic black bars", it would've come out in late 2015-late 2016.

 

Instead 1 year was added in 2012 via GTA V delays and 1 more year in 2017 via Dan Houser mistakes. Equalling 7.75 years from January 2011 to October 1, 2018, instead of shorter 4.75 to 5.75 years (ie late 2015/16), which varies based on 3 years of GTA V production vs anticipated 4 years production for RDR2 in 2016-17.

 

If they were able to spend less time on GTA V development than RDR1 and LA Noire with infinite times more success than both, then I doubt that it cannot be done after VI releases, so we are not waiting until the 2050s to see GTA VIII in trailers. I really could say more about how I feel about these defeatist perspectives, which unilaterally just run with "AAA needing more time is just very necessary and reality" as an excuse vs understanding context.

Edited February 8 by CM1