GTA 6's development has reportedly fallen so far behind, the eagerly-anticipated game may miss its 2025 release window.
03.03.2024 - 17:35 / gamingbolt.com / Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games has historically had significant issues with crunch culture and excessive overtime over the years, and though, in the wake of Red Dead Redemption 2’s arduous development cycle, the company has taken measures to ensure that development of future projects (including the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6) can be done in much more healthy and sustainable fashion, following some recent workplace policy changes, it seems some employees are fearing that Rockstar could return to its former tendencies.
It was recently reported that, in order to avoid any potential security concerns in the future, Rockstar had told its employees it was ending its hybrid working policies and eliminating remote work entirely, with employees mandatorily required to return to a full five days of office work starting April 15. Since then, the IWGB Game Workers Union – including members who work at Rockstar – has said in a statement that the company’s new policy “marks a U-turn from previous statements.”
“The mandate comes one year after unionised workers submitted a petition with 170 signatures, demanding continued remote work options responding to a mandatory transition to 3 days office working, in one of the biggest ever trade union actions in the UK games industry to date,” the union wrote. “Rockstar’s decision to implement the new policy also marks a U-turn from previous statements in which the company insisted flexible work options would remain available, stating in an employee-wide email, ‘This isn’t our first step to 5 days a week. No one wants to go back to the old way of working.'”
The union’s statement says that Rockstar has been unresponsive to “widespread and vocal opposition” from workers, and that it has failed to provide any supporting evidence for its claims of “security concerns and reduced productivity”.
Some employees, it seems, are fearing that the new policy implemented by Rockstar will pave the way for the company to fall back into its older crunch practices. One anonymous employee said, “Working from home has been a lifeline for many of us at Rockstar, allowing us to balance care responsibilities, manage disabilities, and relocate as we need. Now, Rockstar is snatching away that lifeline without a second thought for the workers who’ll be impacted most. After so many broken promises we now fear management may even be paving the way for a return to toxic ‘crunch’ practices. Senior leadership need to rethink their reckless decision making and engage with their staff to find an arrangement that works for everyone.”
Another employee said, “As usual, there has been zero consultation with us: the people who these policy changes most affect. Just one of my concerns is being forced to work late hours in the
GTA 6's development has reportedly fallen so far behind, the eagerly-anticipated game may miss its 2025 release window.
Last December, after literally years of speculation, rumors, and leaks, Rockstar finally dropped the first teaser for Grand Theft Auto VI, with a broad 2025 release date attached. It was appropriate that the GTA VI trailer used a Tom Petty song, because the waiting is indeed the hardest part, but at least fans have a firm 2025 end goal in sight… right? Right?
Diablo 4 revealed the preview of Season 4 on a new Campfire Chat, confirming big changes to the game's itemization and various other adjustments. With the live-service model, Diablo 4 follows a seasonal system similar to what players saw in Diablo 3. Each season has brought a new theme, characters, content, and features to keep Diablo 4's gameplay fresh.
Some GTA 6 developers are passionately rejecting Rockstar's guidance that the push for workers to return to office will ultimately help make a better sequel.
A high school teacher is using Red Dead Redemption as a creative way to teach senior English to students. When it comes to storytelling in games, the Red Dead Redemption franchise is filled with compelling narratives, and this teacher saw the games as a perfect opportunity to teach students about literature.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is getting a documentary, but not about what you might think. A film company called Altitude Media Group has decided to pick up this idea from two players who decided to stage Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the game during the COVID-19 shutdown.
A GTA fan is calling forGrand Theft Auto 6 to add a car feature that would allow players to put people in the back trunk of vehicles. The idea resonated with fellow players, starting a discussion surrounding the Grand Theft Auto 6 wishlist of features they hope to see in Rockstar Games' next installment.
We are used to seeing the original Doom run on pretty much any electronic devices, but we have hardly seen games as complex as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City run on anything other than actual gaming devices. Until today, that is.
A newly emerged job listing from Rockstar may have helped narrow down the Grand Theft Auto 6 release window, suggesting that the highly anticipated game could hit the market as early as Q2 2025. But even if Rockstar is indeed targeting that time frame, Grand Theft Auto 6 still has a chance to slip into the second half of 2025.
In a recent blog post marking half a year since Cfx.re's acquisition by Rockstar Games, the developers of the popular GTA 5 RP server host, FiveM, shed light on their evolving strategies and latest advancements. The update encompasses a range of improvements, addressing support, security, anti-cheat measures, game development, and impacts on RedM, a multiplayer modification framework for Red Dead Redemption 2.
's single-player campaign seems fairly straightforward, but the three ending possibilities are anything but. gives players control over how the story will reach its dramatic conclusion, with a choice of three very different options. Protagonist Franklin Clinton must decide between killing Michael De Santa, killing Trevor Philips, or teaming up with both. While there is a true ending to the game, there is no right or wrong answer for players other than leaving things in a way that they feel confident about the choice they made.
Rockstar Games has released a trailer for Grand Theft Auto Online's new heist coming on March 7, the Cluckin' Bell Farm Raid. Grand Theft Auto Online's next major update sees users take on corrupt cops and a dangerous new cartel.