From 2019 to 2022, the project faced challenges balancing realism with GTA’s arcade feel, leading to a period of struggle and personnel changes before the team began to coalesce in early 2023.

Some GTA VI artists started work as early as 2015, with initial visits to Miami contributing foundational efforts aimed at modernizing Vice City.

GTA VI is slated for release on November 19, 2026, with marketing efforts including a Miami event showcasing cars inspired by the game.

Rockstar Games is granting GTA VI developers broad creative freedom, emphasizing features born from inspiration rather than a fixed plan, which could yield deep, discoverable content for players after launch.

Rockstar says it does not expect another long development gap for future projects and aims to maintain momentum before the launch, with more details and screenshots released as the release date approaches.

Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, filming at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, notes that no single person holds the entire Vice City vision and that top executives acknowledge distributed creative ownership.

The development approach echoes lessons from Red Dead Redemption 2, where spontaneous details emerged from individual creativity and time constraints, such as horse testicle physics.

The design process included experimenting with weapon systems; after years of evaluating alternatives to the weapon wheel, the team ultimately returned to a traditional weapon wheel.