According to former Rockstar Games animator Mike York, the studio has already completed the main stages of development on GTA 6, and the team is now focused on testing and fixing bugs.
In an interview with Kiwi Talkz, which was later deleted, York suggested that the game is most likely already completely playable, and the main task of the developers now is to find and fix all possible bugs.
“I would assume that the game is already playable, and a lot of people are testing it from start to finish. There are probably still a lot of bugs, and they are now actively correcting, trying to find as much as possible before release”.
York also noted that at Rockstar, the process of final polishing projects requires enormous effort, since the GTA games are distinguished by the complexity of open-world simulation. Developers cannot predict all possible actions of players, and therefore have to test the game in the most unexpected situations.
“When we were working on GTA 5, we played it for 8-10 hours a day,” he added, explaining how seriously the studio approaches debugging its games.
The official release date of GTA 6 is still scheduled for fall 2025, but Rockstar is known for its postponements. A prominent figure in gaming journalism, Jason Schreier, however, believes that Rockstar will not have time to finish the game on time and will postpone it until next year.