GTA 6 Reportedly Costing Up to $1.5 Billion to Develop
- Sagar Mankar
- May 7
- 2 min read
GTA 6 is believed to have cost somewhere between $1 billion and $1.5 billion to develop, making it potentially the most expensive video game ever made.
That figure comes from industry analysts speaking to Business Insider, as part of a broader interview with Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.
Zelnick himself acknowledged that the project "was expensive," but stopped short of confirming any specific number. Given what analysts are estimating, that might just be the understatement of the decade.
To understand just how massive that number is, it helps to look at what other big-budget games have cost.
Star Citizen — $800M (crowdfunding + development)
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) — $700M
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) — $640M
Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) — $450M
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Insomniac leak) — $315M
Cyberpunk 2077 — $316M
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty — $84.5M
Horizon Forbidden West — $212M (5 years, ~300 employees)
Horizon Zero Dawn — $212M
The Last of Us Part II — $220M (~200 employees)
Concord — $200M (some reports even claim $400M)
Bungie’s Marathon — $200M
Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) — $200M
Genshin Impact — $100M
Alan Wake 2 — €70M (~$75M USD equivalent)
The budget conversation ties directly into another big question surrounding the game: how much will it cost to buy? Analysts are not exactly aligned on this. Bank of America suggested a price of $80, while others believe Rockstar could justify pushing it all the way to $100. Zelnick addressed the pricing topic at the iicon event, saying that "consumers pay for the value that you bring to them, and our job is to charge way way way less of the value delivery." He also pointed out that game pricing has actually remained relatively flat for years compared to broader inflation trends, which is an interesting point to sit with.
The game is launching on November 19, 2026, exclusively on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S. No PC release has been announced for launch day.
