Former Rockstar Developer Says GTA 6 Delay May Come Down to a Full Engine Rebuild

Why Grand Theft Auto 6 has taken so long

The wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 has already stretched into something approaching a hobby of its own. Rockstar Games has never been famous for rushing anything out the door, but this time the timeline has become unusually long even by the studio’s standards.

A former Rockstar developer now thinks there may be a technical reason for that. Rob Carr, who worked on L.A. Noire, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Red Dead Redemption 2, recently suggested that Rockstar may have rebuilt its Rage Engine almost entirely for the new game.

During an interview with Kiwi Talkz, Carr said he cannot know for sure what happened inside the studio, but he believes the development schedule points in one direction.

"I know nothing about it, other than the fact that they probably will have, given the time frame of how long it's taken them to get to this stage, they've probably rebuilt the entirety of the Rage Engine," Carr said.

He added that he would be "amazed" if that were not the case, arguing that "the architecture of technology has advanced significantly since GTA 5."

That is not exactly a wild accusation. Grand Theft Auto 5 launched back in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which means its successor has now been in the wings for 13 years. Plenty of people assumed Rockstar had simply spent the years squeezing every last dollar out of GTA Online and the many re-releases of GTA 5. That may still have helped keep the lights on, but Carr’s theory suggests something more substantial may be behind the wait.

From leak to trailers to delays

Fans first got an unofficial glimpse of GTA 6 in 2022, when a massive leak exposed more than 90 pieces of gameplay footage from an early build. At the time, there was plenty of skepticism online about whether the material really belonged to the next Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar later confirmed it was genuine, which put that debate to rest in the most glamorous way possible, by making it even more embarrassing for everyone involved.

The first official trailer arrived in December 2023, along with a release window of Fall 2025. Given Rockstar’s tendency to move dates around until they feel emotionally ready, that target was always optimistic.

It was.

The game was first delayed to May 26, 2026. Then Rockstar pushed it again, this time to November 19, 2026.

That second delay makes Grand Theft Auto 6 Rockstar’s longest development cycle to date, and it has only intensified speculation about what the studio has been building behind the scenes. If Carr is right, the answer may be that the company spent years modernizing the technology underneath the game rather than just polishing the surface.

Rockstar says the November date is still on track

Even with a third delay technically still possible, Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, is projecting confidence. CEO Strauss Zelnick has repeated that he believes the November 19 release date will hold. He has also said marketing for Grand Theft Auto 6 will begin in the summer.

That kind of early marketing disclosure is not something big publishers usually toss out casually. In this case, though, it reads as a public attempt to calm a fanbase that has spent years watching the calendar and expecting bad news.

For now, the message from Take-Two is that the date is set and the game is on its way.

The next question: price

With nearly a year passing since Rockstar released the second trailer, fans are increasingly eager for more footage, screenshots, or frankly anything that confirms the game still exists in a material form.

Another hot topic is the price tag. Take-Two was among the first major publishers to raise the cost of AAA games from $60 to $70 when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launched, so some players have assumed GTA 6 could trigger another jump. A few analysts have even suggested the game might cost $100 or more.

That is still speculation for now, but it is the kind of speculation that tends to follow a blockbuster with this much anticipation attached. At this point, Grand Theft Auto 6 is not just a game release. It is also a live test of how much patience, and how much money, the market has left.