Rockstar nearly doubled staff and opened an LA office for GTA 6 NPCs

Rockstar Games grew from 2,441 employees to 4,711 between shipping Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018 and making Grand Theft Auto VI, and set up a Los Angeles operation devoted entirely to the game's non-player characters, according to a report from GTABoom.

The site attributes the details to comments from Rockstar's Rob Nelson and head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe. It does not name the interview or outlet where those comments first appeared.

What we know

According to GTABoom:

• Rockstar now has 4,711 staff across twelve offices, most of them in development or QA.
• When the team estimated how many people it would need to fill the game world with believable NPCs, Nelson described the projections as "horrifying."
• In response, Rockstar quickly built a Los Angeles operation staffed by writers, producers and directors whose sole job was creating NPCs.

GTABoom also reports that Kolbe described a decision after Red Dead Redemption 2 not to repeat how that game was made. The changes the site lists are a larger workforce, more careful planning, more realistic deadlines, and paid time off for overtime, with extra pay in some cases.

The site connects the game's two delays to the same reasoning. It says pushing the release from 2025 to 2026 was meant to give the team room so the final stretch didn't turn into all-nighters.

Kolbe did not claim the problem was solved. "It's not been perfect, but it's certainly better than Red Dead 2 was," she said, as quoted by GTABoom. The site adds that some teams still worked heavy hours.

Kolbe also acknowledged that whenever leadership says it avoided crunch, someone will say otherwise. According to GTABoom, she said she does not want to argue with anyone who reports that experience.

What isn't confirmed yet

The figures and quotes reach us second-hand through GTABoom, which doesn't identify the original source. They have not been checked against a Rockstar statement or the original interview.

GTABoom also offers its own view that this scale of effort likely added to the game's development time and cost. That is the site's interpretation, not something Rockstar has said.

It is also unclear how large the Los Angeles NPC team is or when it was set up. GTABoom says only that it was assembled quickly.