Rockstar Denies GTA 6 Cost Over $1.5 Billion, But It's Still Likely the Most Expensive Game Ever Made

Rockstar has pushed back against a rumor that GTA 6 cost more than $1.5 billion to develop, but the game is still probably the most expensive video game of all time.

In a comprehensive Bloomberg report on the making of GTA 6, Rockstar's head of publishing, Jennifer Kolbe, dismissed the rumor that GTA 6's budget exceeded the $1.5 billion spent on Dubai's Burj Khalifa. However, she did not confirm the game's actual budget. The rumor appears to have originated from a July 2025 Gulf News article, which stated, "Dubai's landmark is said to have cost $1.5 billion but the game is thought to have a $2 billion budget."

Earlier this year, Business Insider suggested a $1-1.5 billion budget based on industry analyst estimates in an interview with Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar's parent company Take-Two. Zelnick declined to specify how much the company had spent on GTA 6 so far, but did admit it was "expensive."

While GTA 6 may not have cost more than $1.5 billion to develop, according to Rockstar, it is still considered the most expensive video game ever made. The only game that might come close is the space sim Star Citizen, though its now over $1 billion budget comes from ongoing sales of in-game spaceships. For comparison, Bungie's recently released extraction shooter reportedly had a budget of over $250 million. Concord's initial development deal was around $200 million, according to a Kotaku report. In 2023, documents from the Xbox FTC case accidentally revealed that The Last of Us: Part II and Horizon Forbidden West each cost more than $200 million to develop. Last year, the astronomical development budgets of the Call of Duty games were revealed for the first time after a court document confirmed Activision pumped $700 million into Black Ops Cold War alone, although that was over the shooter's life cycle. GTA 6 clearly surpasses them all.

Bloomberg's report also confirmed that Rockstar now has 4,711 staff across 12 offices, up from the 2,441 staff it had when Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in 2018. The company has doubled in size over the last eight years, which will have significantly increased costs.

As Bloomberg points out, GTA 6's enormous budget is likely to pay off quickly, with some predicting a staggering 40 million sales and $3 billion in revenue in the first four months after the game launches in November. The standard edition of GTA 6 costs $80 — a $10 increase over the standard price of a triple-A game. The Ultimate Edition, which some consider essential, costs $100. Then there's the expected launch of online multiplayer next year (possibly tied to the PC version, reportedly due out Q1 2027), which will surely boost revenue even further. In short, even if it's just shy of $1.5 billion, GTA 6's budget doesn't seem like much of a risk.

In July, Newzoo analysis suggested GTA 6 generated approximately $180 million in digital preorders across the U.S. and the five biggest European markets during the last week of June (GTA 6 preorders went live at midnight, June 25). The analytics firm used GTA 5's player distribution (around 69% of GTA 5's lifetime console players are in those six markets) to estimate global first-week preorder spending for GTA 6 at approximately $260 million. Based on comparable preorder curves, GTA 6 is currently tracking toward $3.25 billion to $5.2 billion in cumulative sales by the end of launch week, it said.

GTA 5 set records by generating $1 billion in three days after going on sale in 2013, making it the fastest-selling entertainment product in history (Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame came close, making $1 billion at the global box office in five days). GTA 6 seems certain to hit the $1 billion mark faster than both. GTA 5 went on to become the second best-selling video game of all time, with nearly 230 million units sold-in to date. Only Minecraft is ahead of it. Could GTA 6 eventually surpass even Minecraft's 400 million sales?

In other GTA 6 news, Bloomberg reported that Rockstar has promised its next game won't take another eight years to develop, although we don't know what it will be.