Rockstar says GTA 6 didn’t cost more than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, putting down one of the game’s most popular rumours ahead of its November launch.
What Rockstar still won’t do is name the real figure. Its denial covers only the comparison with the tower’s roughly $1.5 billion price tag. The GTA 6 budget remains anyone’s estimate, from the analysts’ guesses to the viral Reddit maths.
Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar’s head of publishing, shot down the rumour in Bloomberg’s long feature on the making of the game, by Jason Schreier. The feature sits behind a paywall, but Bloomberg’s text is plain on the main point: “Rockstar won’t say how much the game cost to make.” GameSpot reports the same thing, saying Rockstar rejected the claim but hasn’t confirmed how much it spent. It’s unclear whether Kolbe’s “no” refers to the whole budget or only to development.
Where the Burj Khalifa comparison came from
In July 2025, Gulf News set the two side by side. It said Dubai’s landmark “is said to have cost $1.5 billion, but the game is thought to have a $2 billion budget.” The tower cost about $1.5 billion to build between 2004 and 2010, with most sources putting the structure at $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion. It took six years and more than 12,000 workers.
Other figures have circulated since, and Rockstar and Take-Two haven’t confirmed any of them:
- Business Insider suggested $1 billion to $1.5 billion, based on analyst estimates.
- The $2 billion figure is an extrapolation that spread online, not a Rockstar or Take-Two disclosure.
- A viral Reddit post put the cost at $3 billion to $5 billion. It worked from Rockstar North salaries of about $2.1 billion, and the outlet reporting it noted that’s one studio’s payroll over several years, not a budget document.
Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick hasn’t helped narrow it down. In an interview with Business Insider, he wouldn’t say how much the company had spent but admitted “it was expensive.”
Bloomberg’s own estimate
In Bloomberg’s view, the game is almost certainly the most expensive ever made, based on the time and labour involved. It says other publishers try to keep budgets under $500 million, and GTA 6 “might have cost more than double that.”
The labour is easy to see in the headcount. Rockstar had 2,441 staff when Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in 2018, and 4,711 across 12 offices in 2026, with 4,020 in development and QA and 690 in publishing. GamerFuzion’s summary of the feature says one of the biggest drivers was NPCs. According to GTA BOOM, Rockstar set up a new Los Angeles office to write, produce and direct the game’s non-player characters. Other publishers are moving development out of the expensive US, so that’s a move against the trend.
Development also ran for more than eight years. The game started life as Project Americas, aimed at big swathes of North and South America, before it shrank to Miami and its surroundings. Tbreak has covered the size of the map separately.
Why Rockstar can afford it
The spending looks less reckless next to the returns. Bloomberg says GTA Online alone brings in an estimated half a billion dollars a year. Some analysts expect GTA 6 to sell 40 million copies on PlayStation and Xbox and make more than $3 billion in its first four months. The standard edition costs $80, a $10 rise on the usual triple-A price, and the Ultimate Edition costs $100.
Rockstar announced the game in December 2023 for 2025, then moved it to 26 May 2026, and then to 19 November. It launches on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on 19 November 2026, and our UAE guide covers the price, unlock time, and pre-loads. Whatever the final bill, Rockstar has only denied the $1.5 billion comparison.
