What is the GTA 6 budget?
Rockstar and Take-Two have published no GTA 6 budget. Several industry analysts told Business Insider in May 2026 that the tab is likely in the $1 billion to $1.5 billion range, and Take-Two’s CEO, Strauss Zelnick, would say only that “it was expensive”.
The figure comes from Business Insider’s profile of Zelnick by Sarah E. Needleman, published May 5, 2026. Take-Two has not disclosed a GTA 6 development cost: its August 7, 2026 results report company-wide net bookings and reiterate an outlook of $8.0 to $8.2 billion, not a game budget.
GTA BOOM reported on October 14, 2026 that Rockstar’s head of publishing, Jennifer Kolbe, denied in a Bloomberg feature that GTA 6 cost more than the roughly $1.5 billion spent on Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, without giving a number.
For scale, GTA 5’s combined development and marketing spend was reported at about $265 million, so even the low end of the analysts’ range is several times that. Take-Two reports GTA 5 has sold in over 230 million units.
Reported game budgets, for scale
None of these except Cyberpunk 2077 comes from an official studio disclosure. The GTA 6 figure is the range analysts gave Business Insider, which does not split development from marketing; GTA 5’s $265 million is a press estimate covering development and marketing; the RDR2 figure is from Wikipedia’s tracked estimates; Cyberpunk’s $316 million is CD Projekt’s own reported development spend. Treat all but Cyberpunk as estimates.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Game | Reported cost | What the figure covers |
|---|---|---|
| GTA 6 (2026) | About $1B to $1.5B (est.) | What Take-Two has spent, per analysts in Business Insider |
| GTA 5 (2013) | About $265M (reported) | Development plus marketing, press estimate |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) | About $170M to $300M (est.) | Development, with the upper range including marketing |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) | About $316M (official) | Development only, per CD Projekt; more with post-launch updates |
More on Buying GTA 6 and launch day
- How big is GTA 6? Up to 212 GB to pre-load
- When can you pre-load GTA 6? November 10
- How to redeem a GTA 6 code on PS5 and Xbox
- GTA 6 PS5 controller: the GTA VI DualSense editions
- Is there a GTA 6 PS5 bundle? Not from Sony
- What is the GTA 6 age rating
- Is there a GTA 6 beta
- GTA 6 Ultimate Edition: what is included
How much did GTA 6 cost to make?
There is no official figure. Several industry analysts told Business Insider in May 2026 that the tab is likely in the $1 billion to $1.5 billion range. Take-Two’s Strauss Zelnick would say only that “it was expensive”.
Did GTA 6 cost $2 billion?
No official source says so. GTA BOOM reported on October 14, 2026 that Rockstar’s head of publishing, in a Bloomberg feature, denied the game cost more than about $1.5 billion, and analysts told Business Insider the tab is likely $1 billion to $1.5 billion.
Is GTA 6 the most expensive game ever?
No budget is published, so nobody can state it as fact. At $1 billion, the low end of the analysts’ range in Business Insider, it would pass every other budget in the table above.
Why is GTA 6 so expensive to make?
Rockstar has not itemized the cost. It told Edge the landmass is nearly as large as the playable maps of GTA 4, GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 combined, and Aaron Garbut told the magazine the game has “an order of magnitude more interiors” than its predecessors.