Who's making GTA 6: the Rockstar people behind it, and what they've said

Grand Theft Auto VI is made by Rockstar Games, which has grown to 4,711 people across 12 offices, Bloomberg reports. Rockstar rarely puts names to its games, but in the run-up to launch a few of its leads have talked to the press: in Edge, Bloomberg Businessweek, IGN, Game Informer, Dazed and LOVE. Here's who they are and what each has said, with links to the full interviews we've covered.

Rockstar North: the three heads of development

Rob Nelson has been the face of GTA 6's press tour. He joined Rockstar in 2003 at its Toronto studio, after he and his roommate built a test level to show they could make environments, Edge reports, and in 2015 he led the small group that went to Miami to work out what a return to Vice City should look like. He has played the game for IGN and for Edge, and he told The New York Times his own playthrough took about 80 hours, as TechRadar reported. On the relationship between Jason and Lucia, he told IGN: "It's not something that we want to foist upon players." Three weeks before launch, he told Edge: "It's ready."

Aaron Garbut shares Nelson's titles. He told Game Informer the map is roughly twice the size of GTA V's, according to IGN, and told Edge the game has "an order of magnitude more interiors" than Rockstar's earlier games. He also walked Edge through the weather, with clouds shaped by wind, humidity, fog, the time of day and the season. His summary of the project: "I feel like we've built a pyramid on Everest."

Phil Hooker is the third head of development, the one in charge of making the game stable, Edge says. He told Bloomberg about a test session that went off course: he meant to check a story mission and spent two hours on a fender-bender, a store robbery, a car theft and a fence. "I remember the sheer fun of it," he said. He told Edge he rides GTA 6's buses to make sure they run on time: "I'm obsessed with making sure they always turn up."

Rockstar's leaders

Sam Houser, Rockstar's president, was once one of the series' most visible faces and is now a more private figure, Edge says. It describes his role: he helped plan the map with Garbut, worked on the characters and story, and plays each milestone build with Nelson, sending notes back to the teams.

Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar's head of publishing, gave Bloomberg the business side. Both of GTA 6's delays went through her, and each time she called Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick. She told staff, "We're not going to finish this game by crunching," and on a union at Rockstar, she said: "We go where the team goes. So if they want a union, they will have a union." Our story on the union vote has more.

The artists

• Owen Shepherd, vice president of art for lighting and rendering, told Game Informer that Rockstar rebuilt its weather system so conditions are far more localized and persistent, as IGN and Kotaku reported.
• Michael Kane, vice president of dynamic art, told Game Informer the team wanted to include Florida's animal life faithfully, and that it made its biggest range of clothes and accessories yet, according to IGN.
• Jamie-Lee Lloyd, senior art director for characters, told Dazed how the team's research shaped the way characters look.
• Stu Petri, vice president of 2D and UI design, described GTA 6's made-up brands to Dazed.

The writers

Rockstar hasn't published writing credits, but five of its writers have talked about the story:

• Rupert Humphries, senior vice president of narrative, called GTA 6 "a Bonnie and Clyde-type narrative" in Dazed, and told LOVE that Leonida is "a pressure cooker for all kinds of insanity." To research a place, he said, the team meets everyone from ex-criminals to police and club promoters.
• Elizabeth Gauvey-Kern, a game writer, told LOVE the team "wanted both protagonists to be vulnerable, tough, flawed."
• Alexa D'Agostino, a game writer, told LOVE that writing a full person produces "something perfectly imperfect."
• James Horton, writing director for the open world, told LOVE: "In a way, there is no 'background' in this game."
• Michael Wiafe, a game writer, told Dazed the team approaches the cultures it portrays with "an open mind, a genuine appreciation and a deep curiosity."

Take-Two

Strauss Zelnick runs Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar's parent company, and speaks for it to investors. In August he cited "our high degree of confidence around the November 19th release." At a conference in April, he said he thinks "a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19," IGN reported. Take-Two reports its next results on Nov. 9; our preview has the details.

Who we haven't heard from

The actors. Rockstar hasn't named GTA 6's cast, though Edge reports that Jason and Lucia each took "a long time" to cast. Our voice actors guide explains what is and isn't known.

Read the interviews

• Edge's cover story: Nelson's 90-minute demo, with Garbut and Hooker.
• Bloomberg's look inside the studio: Kolbe, Hooker and the making of the game.
• IGN's full Rob Nelson interview.
• Game Informer's cover story.
• Dazed's deep dive and LOVE's cover, with the writers.
• How long GTA 6 took to make.