GTA 6 team size: Rockstar went from 2,441 staff to 4,711

Rockstar Games has 4,711 staff across 12 offices, up from 2,441 when Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in October 2018. Both numbers come from Jason Schreier’s Bloomberg feature of October 14, 2026, picked up the same day by Eurogamer, IGN and GameSpot. The gap is 2,270 people: headcount grew 1.93 times over while Grand Theft Auto VI was in production, ahead of its November 19, 2026 release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Date	Headcount	What it covers	Source
October 2018	2,441 staff	all of Rockstar Games, at Red Dead Redemption 2’s launch	Bloomberg
August 27, 2026	“more than doubled”	development teams, since Red Dead Redemption 2	Rockstar, quoted by VGC
October 14, 2026	4,711 staff, 12 offices	all of Rockstar Games	Bloomberg
October 15, 2026	about 4,700	all of Rockstar Games, rounded	Gamekult

The two readings measure different things. On August 27, 2026, Rockstar told VGC its development teams had “more than doubled” since Red Dead Redemption 2. Bloomberg’s count covers every employee and works out to a 93% rise. Rockstar publishes no breakdown by job that would bridge the two.

Twelve offices, more than one game

The 4,711 figure covers the whole of Rockstar Games. Bloomberg does not size the GTA 6 team on its own, and the names in the end credits can only be counted after November 19, 2026.

Take-Two describes Rockstar as having “10 in-house studios” in its August 2026 investor presentation. Bloomberg says 12 offices. The public list of Rockstar’s studios names ten, from Edinburgh to Sydney, plus the Santa Monica team that directs the pedestrians and Cfx, the FiveM team bought in 2023: twelve in all. Take-Two does not publish the exact mapping.

Rockstar North in Edinburgh is the home studio of the Grand Theft Auto series. On November 14, 2025, more than 200 of its staff signed a letter asking for fired colleagues to be reinstated, GamesIndustry.biz reported. Rockstar had let 34 people go in October 2025: 31 at Rockstar North and 3 at Rockstar Toronto.

What the growth changed

Covid-19 hit while the company was growing. Rob Nelson, co-head of Rockstar North, told Bloomberg about running production from home: “Trying to keep a team together through that is really challenging.”

On overtime, head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe measured it against the previous game: “It’s not been perfect, but it’s certainly better than Red Dead 2 was.” Gamekult, on October 15, 2026, listed better pay for overtime hours among the changes.

Head of development Phil Hooker sees the bigger team as the reason the next game should not take another eight years: “the engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly.” Payroll also drives the bill, covered on our GTA 6 budget page.