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Rockstar starts by visiting the setting
Rob Nelson, Rockstar Games’ Head of Development and Co-Studio Co-Head at Rockstar North, said the first step after choosing a setting is to go there. A small group drives around, takes photographs and discusses what feels distinctive; a larger group may return later with consultants who introduce them to more places. For GTA VI, Nelson named Florida and Miami, including the Everglades and towns outside Miami.
“The first thing we always do, once we decide where we want to set the game, is we’ll go there,” Nelson told TroisCouleurs in an interview published August 27, 2026. He described the aim as observation and selection, not a one-to-one copy of reality: the team considers which elements to include or accentuate, and which people and places fit the game.
The map and story take shape together
Nelson did not describe a rigid sequence where Rockstar finishes the map before writing the story, or completes the story before laying out the world. As the team blocks out the map and considers how its areas relate geographically, it also thinks about what kinds of characters could plausibly take players through those different environments.
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#1 Best Overall
- This product contains a download code inside the box — no disc is included. Customer shipments will begin arriving November 12 for pre-load; game is playable starting November 19.
- Pre-order to receive the Vintage Vice City Pack.
- Grand Theft Auto VI is a single-player experience.
The narrative begins as a short outline: where characters start, what moves them elsewhere, and how the major story beats carry the player across the map. The game’s chapters help organize that journey. Missions and set pieces then build on the outline, with locations shaped around the action they need to support.
Characters give the player a route through the world
Nelson connected protagonist choices to the places and situations the game wants to explore. Rockstar considered the multiple protagonists of GTA V and the single central character of Red Dead Redemption 2 while thinking about a duo for GTA VI. He said the team wanted both deeper interaction with the world and a stronger emotional bond with the protagonists.
That is Nelson’s account of the creative reasoning, not a claim that it was the only factor behind the protagonists. Rockstar’s official GTA VI page identifies Jason and Lucia and places their criminal conspiracy across the fictional state of Leonida.
Rank #2
- Grand Theft Auto III: It all starts in Liberty City. With the revolutionary freedom to go anywhere and jack anyone, Grand Theft Auto III puts the center of the criminal underworld at your fingertips, if you have enough guts to take it.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Welcome to the 1980s. From the decade of big hair and pastel suits comes the story of one man's rise to the top of the criminal pile.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Five years ago, Carl 'CJ' Johnson escaped the haze of Los Santos, San Andreas...a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs, and corruption.
Major missions come first; player alternatives come into view next
Nelson described building the game in layers. The team plots major missions and story points—including catalyst missions that move characters between parts of the game—then asks how each mission will work and whether players might do something different or go off the rails.
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This is a design question Nelson says the team considers, not a disclosed testing protocol. The interview offers a window into Rockstar’s stated approach to mission design, but not a complete account of its prototyping, level-design, quality-assurance or production-management systems.
A song helped guide the game’s intended feel
Creative direction can begin with an image or a piece of music, Nelson said. He described Tom Petty’s “Love Is a Long Road,” used in GTA VI’s first trailer, as “a real sort of mission statement” and a guiding light for the feeling the team wanted while the game was still taking shape.
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Performance capture supports scenes with varying levels of control
Nelson said GTA VI uses full performance capture and that Rockstar continues to explore scenes that shift between player control, partial control and full cutscenes. The aim is to make those transitions feel natural and keep players involved in moments that might otherwise be passive.
He traced the studio’s interest in reducing abrupt breaks between gameplay and cinematic scenes to GTA IV and Episodes from Liberty City. Red Dead Redemption explored characters walking into and out of scenes; for Red Dead Redemption 2, Nelson pointed to the gang riding to retrieve Jack as an example in which players had limited but meaningful control. He said GTA VI continues that approach.
Immersion can matter more than literal realism
Nelson has also described realism as a tool rather than an absolute rule. In remarks reported by GamesRadar, quoting a Love magazine interview, he said some realistic details help immersion, while others can make play tedious. The studio tries to balance realism with what is convenient for the player and supports their connection to the world, characters and story.
Rank #4
- Grand Theft Auto III: It all starts in Liberty City. With the revolutionary freedom to go anywhere and jack anyone, Grand Theft Auto III puts the center of the criminal underworld at your fingertips, if you have enough guts to take it.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Welcome to the 1980s. From the decade of big hair and pastel suits comes the story of one man's rise to the top of the criminal pile.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Five years ago, Carl ‘CJ’ Johnson escaped the haze of Los Santos, San Andreas...a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs, and corruption.
Satire needs to fit the game, not just the moment
Nelson said satire is difficult because the world can change between an idea’s conception and its writing, casting, filming and implementation. Rockstar looks for ideas that fit the story and setting rather than relying only on a trend that may have passed by release. Nelson said the team hopes players will later see the game as a time capsule of its era.
“There will always be things to satirise, there are always ridiculous situations and behaviours that we can find, but we just have to be careful about what we pick,” he told TroisCouleurs.
Nelson says development began in 2015, but most of the team joined later
In the August 27, 2026 interview, Nelson said, “The game’s been in development since 2015, so the idea is gestating for a long time. The majority of the team really started rolling on to it after Red Dead Redemption 2 released in 2018.” Those are two different milestones: his stated development start and the point after which most of the team began working on GTA VI. He did not say that the whole team worked on it from 2015 or give a date for full production.
The interview does not establish GTA VI’s total budget, production headcount or engine architecture. Rockstar’s official game page currently lists November 19, 2026, as the release date for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S; that product information does not fill in the production details Nelson did not discuss.
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