Take-Two is estimated to have spent between $1bn and $1.5bn on GTA 6, according to Business Insider via IGN. This dwarfs comparable AAA titles — Horizon Forbidden West ($212m), The Last of Us Part 2 ($220m), and Bungie's Marathon ($200m) — by an order of magnitude. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick called the project an "expensive" endeavour without confirming a specific figure.
Part 1
GTA 6 parent company Take-Two is estimated to have spent between $1bn and $1.5bn on Rockstar's upcoming game, according to Business Insider (via IGN), which based these staggering figures on estimations made by industry analysts as part of an interview with Take-Two's head honcho, Strauss Zelnick.
Part 2
To compare other big triple-A video game releases from recent years: in 2023 it was revealed that Horizon Forbidden West cost $212m to develop over five years between 2017 and 2022, with 300 employees attached to the project. At the same time, fellow PlayStation exclusive The Last of Us Part 2 was revealed to have cost $220m to make, with an employee count of roughly 200. More recently, Bungie's Marathon reboot reportedly had a budget of $200m. In other words, a single GTA 6 is estimated to have cost roughly five to seven times more than some of the most expensive games ever made.
Part 3
So, yes, big games have been costly to develop for quite some time, but GTA 6 is costly with extra emphasis on each and every letter in the word.