Bloomberg on the Making of GTA 6: Jason and Lucia Text to Meet Up, and Rockstar Disputes the $1.5 Billion Budget

Bloomberg published “Inside the Making of Grand Theft Auto 6” on October 14, 2026, a feature by Jason Schreier, who visited Rockstar North in Edinburgh in late September and spoke with Rob Nelson, Aaron Garbut, Phil Hooker and Jennifer Kolbe. The biggest news for players is that Jason and Lucia can text each other to meet up and do things together outside missions, that Rockstar created a Los Angeles studio dedicated to NPCs, and that the company rejects the $1.5 billion budget figure without giving the real one. The full piece is paywalled; here’s what outlets that read it have reported. Bloomberg VICE

The example Rockstar gave Bloomberg starts with Jason texting Lucia to meet up. A few minutes later the two are walking hand in hand through a park talking about their lives, with stories like the time Lucia’s mother got mad at Jason, and from there they can hit the gym (she’s on the treadmill, he’s doing squats) or rob a store and flee the cops while bantering. Rob Nelson says the team debated whether the AI work was worth it, and one argument won out: “This is a game about a couple. They have to be a couple.” What we already knew about how they interact is in Jason and Lucia’s relationship in our characters guide. VICE GTAVice.net

Two hours without reaching a mission

Phil Hooker told Bloomberg about a playtest in a late build. He was heading to a story mission, bumped another car and got rammed; they pulled over to fight, another NPC insulted him on the way and that turned into a second fight. Low on health, he went into a convenience store for something to heal, saw nobody at the register and robbed it, escaped the cops, swapped cars, followed a driver who nearly hit him to a compound with more to steal, and sold the goods to a fence who tipped him off about another activity. Nearly two hours passed and he never reached the mission. VICE IBTimes

According to Bloomberg, Rockstar realized it couldn’t write and animate all the NPCs it had planned with the resources it had; Nelson called the early production estimates “horrifying.” The fix was a Los Angeles studio with writers, producers and directors dedicated to supporting characters. The feature’s example is a nightclub, where the team had to animate and script patrons, create drinks, add music and coordinate lighting. What we know about how they’ll behave is in our GTA 6 NPC guide. VICE

Rockstar disputes the $1.5 billion budget

Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar’s head of publishing, pushed back on the $1.5 billion figure that has circulated for years but didn’t give the real cost. Schreier estimates development may have topped $1 billion, and Rockstar hasn’t published an official number. Kolbe also says leadership set out not to finish the game through crunch: it hired more people, changed scheduling and began giving paid time off for extra hours, though she acknowledges individual experiences may have differed. FandomWire GTAVice.net

Headcount, delays and what comes next

Rockstar went from 2,441 employees in 2018 to 4,711 in August 2026, across 12 offices. Leaders attribute the delays (from 2025 to May 2026 and then to November 19) to many tasks not moving fast enough rather than a single problem; Hooker says they could have hit the schedule, “but it won’t be the game we want to make.” Kolbe broke both delays to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. Rockstar also believes GTA 6’s tech and tools will make its next games much faster to build, pointing to GTA Vice City, made in under a year on top of GTA III. Schreier, who saw staff fixing bugs in September, thinks November 19 is the real date. It’s also the first time Rockstar has talked about the 2022 leak: Aaron Garbut says it felt “like somebody’s wading through your dirty washing,” that seeing early work “nobody’s ever supposed to see” out in public was “really weirdly invasive” and hard to deal with emotionally. GamingBolt VGTimes GTAVice.net

On crunch, Kolbe says that after Red Dead Redemption 2, when Dan Houser talked about 100-hour weeks, Rockstar’s leaders told each other “we’re not doing it again like this.” For GTA 6 they re-estimated how long tasks take, planned more tightly and now pay back overtime with time off or, in some cases, extra pay. Kolbe acknowledges that some developers have gone through stretches of long hours and that someone will always say they crunched, but she says the process is better than it was on Red Dead Redemption 2. What split the staff far more was the office: since April 2024 Rockstar has required five days a week in person, a policy Kolbe announced citing productivity and security after the 2022 leak and the early leak of the first trailer in December 2023, and some employees point out that the Cyberleak leaks happened anyway in 2026. Kolbe says Rockstar will revisit the policy after launch, though she doubts it will land on the two-days-at-home hybrid setup some developers want. GameDaily Fortune Bloomberg

In his October 16 newsletter, Schreier describes what he watched Nelson play in Edinburgh. Jason called Lucia to ask if she was up for hanging out, and when she arrived Nelson pressed a button to kiss her and another to have them hold hands through a park; then a drive, the gym (she on the treadmill, he doing squats), a bank Jason walked into to see whether it was worth robbing (no: too many guards), an ATM to drop off cash, with Nelson explaining that “your cash is vulnerable” and that they have “tried to make money mean more than it ever has,” and the back office of what looked like a gas station, where he disarmed the alarm and took the money without alerting anyone: “there’s so many of these little interiors, hundreds of them, that you can go and explore.” A planned trip to the salon for a haircut went sideways when he ran into some unfriendly pedestrians: a brawl, someone called the cops and the couple fled by car. Nelson says the Wanted system knows the culprits are a couple, so they can shake the police by splitting up and fleeing separately: “it’s a completely new way to play GTA, with a person if you want.” Schreier adds that the development hurdles included the “dark times,” the pandemic doldrums and endless experimentation on the weapon wheel, and opens the piece with Dan Houser telling GQ in 2018 that games seem “made by elves” and that you gain something by not knowing how they are made; this time, Rockstar opened the door. What was already known about the ATM and cash is in the money guide, the split getaway in the police guide and the interiors in the interiors guide. Bloomberg

Bloomberg reports that GTA 6’s online mode is expected in 2027, but Rockstar declined to discuss its online plans and there’s no official date, so our GTA 6 Online guide doesn’t change on that basis. There’s also no official budget, no announced follow-up game, and no detail on how many couple activities the game will have beyond the feature’s examples. GTAVice.net

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Sources

GameDaily — Rockstar Nearly Doubled Its Staff To Nearly 5,000 To Build GTA 6 (October 14, 2026)

Fortune — Rockstar’s five-day return-to-office order (February 28, 2024)

GamingBolt — Grand Theft Auto 6 Artist Says 2022 Leaks Were “Weirdly Invasive” (October 15, 2026)

Bloomberg — Inside the Making of Grand Theft Auto 6 (October 14, 2026, paywalled)

Bloomberg — Behind the Scenes of Grand Theft Auto VI, Jason Schreier’s Game On newsletter (October 16, 2026, paywalled)

VICE — Rockstar reveals new GTA 6 features for Jason and Lucia’s relationship

GTAVice.net — Summary of the Bloomberg feature

FandomWire — Rockstar addresses the alleged $1.5 billion budget

VGTimes — Key takeaways from Bloomberg’s report

IBTimes — Phil Hooker’s playtest story

Last verified: October 16, 2026.