Take-Two is estimated to have spent between $1 billion and $1.5 billion on GTA 6 — five to seven times the budget of a typical AAA game. Business Insider (via IGN) reported the staggering figures based on analyst estimates from a Zelnick interview. Take-Two CEO called it an 'expensive' endeavour and 'the most spectacular piece of entertainment on Earth' — a 'daunting challenge'.
Part 1
GTA 6 parent company Take-Two is estimated to have spent between $1 billion and $1.5 billion 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 put that into perspective with other big triple-A video game releases from recent years: in 2023 it was revealed that Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million 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 $220 million to make, with an employee count of roughly 200. More recently, Bungie's Marathon reboot reportedly had a budget of $200 million. By these measures, GTA 6's estimated development cost is five to seven times higher than a typical big-budget game — making it truly unprecedented in the industry.
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.