It's official: the next project from Rockstar Games studios is indeed called GTA 6. The information was revealed by Jason Schreier, former editor of the English-language reference site Kotaku. No release date has been revealed yet, but the wait could prove to be long. And for an excellent reason. It's been a long time since Rockstar was talked about. The studio's latest title dates from October 26, 2018. Its name: Red Dead Redemption II. Since its release, the game has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. An economic success however tarnished by a controversy born only a week before the release of the game. 
In an interview with American magazine Vulture, studio co-founder Dan Houser said that some members of the development team worked more than a hundred hours a week to release Red Dead Redemption II on time. The sentence was very quickly removed from the interview in question, but the information still went around the world. Investigations conducted in France by Le Monde and in the United States by Kotaku have revealed the infernal cadences imposed on the studio's employees.
Putting an end to "crunch culture"
Since then, the news of the group is very rare. Except for the resignation of Dan Houser announced in February 2020, Rockstar Games has moved into the silence that characterizes it. Until this April. Jason Schreier has revealed the contents of an email sent internally by Jennifer Kolbe, one of the studio's managers. Dated autumn 2019, one year after the "hundred hours" scandal, the email contains a list of initiatives put in place to improve working conditions in the ten studios of the company in the world. Among others: flexible schedules, new managerial training, anonymous internal surveys to encourage employees to express themselves, as well as better overall communication, both internally and externally.
"We realized that we had to put in place measures to improve the development of our games. All of this will allow us to reduce our need for overtime." Jennifer Kolbe
Rockstar wants to put an end to this "crunch" culture that surrounds its company. However, this work will be long, because it is deeply rooted in mentalities. "For a long time, we were led to believe that we could not do good work without working overtime," says a former employee of the studio.
A GTA of "moderate" size
It is for all these reasons that GTA 6 may be very different from its predecessors. Rockstar wants to release a game of a "moderate" size that will grow over time, like GTA Online. A compromise that would allow, in theory, to link quality of play and comfort of work for employees. The practice could be quite different. GTA 6 is now at the beginning of its development. Will these new working conditions be able to remain intact until the game's release date? This is the question that now worries Rockstar Games employees: "Today, the changes made are good, says a developer anonymously. That's why I'm staying and giving them a second chance. But we'll see what happens when the pressure to release the game on time becomes reality."
