Former Rockstar Games Developer Says GTA 6 Will Be “Monstrous” In Terms of Details

With GTA 6, the most anticipated video game of 2026, exactly four months out from release, most players still have no real idea what the game will look like—in terms of world scale, gameplay features, level of detail, and so on. Turns out even former Rockstar developers are puzzled by that, though they acknowledge the studio has put in an enormous amount of work.

Not long ago, former Rockstar Games producer John Ricchio—who worked at the company from 2003 to 2014 and helped develop projects like Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3, and GTA 5—appeared on the "Kiwi Talkz" podcast. When he was asked about the potential scale of GTA 6, he claimed each game in the series had topped the last one in scope and that it was hard for him to guess how much further the sixth installment would push things technologically past GTA 5, given that nearly 13 years have passed since the franchise's last release. You can check out Ricchio's exact words from the interview below:

“I think the fact that every single time they do a GTA, it's ludicrously bigger than before is like something that I think about. Like, I can only imagine the size of GTA 6. Like it must be monstrous. Or if not monstrous, it's probably way more detailed.

GTA 5 was "significantly bigger than GTA 4, which itself was much bigger in many ways than the original Red Dead Redemption. Even between GTA and RDR, they were continually growing the size of the world.”

Despite his excitement about GTA 6, Ricchio also revealed he's glad not to be involved in the game’s development, calling it "really difficult" and "a tough period in your career when you're working that hard on something." In the same interview, he explained why Rockstar releases its games on consoles first and PC later: the studio wants to nail optimization on console versions before fully committing to the PC port.

As for GTA 6 itself, fans are still waiting for the marketing campaign to ramp up—especially with today's FIFA World Cup final and Strauss Zelnick's May interview, where the Take-Two CEO claimed marketing would be more active than ever this summer. So far, though, that hasn't happened. You can also find out everything we know about GTA 6 so far—the story, gameplay, map, open world, platforms, and more - as well as how GTA 6 is reshaping the 2026 game calendar and everything about GTA 6 pre-order details: price, bonuses, exact time, and Ultimate Edition.

Grand Theft Auto VI will release on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.