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Inside Rockstar North: The Guardian's GTA 6 hands-on
The Guardian's Keza MacDonald visited Rockstar North in Edinburgh for a Grand Theft Auto VI hands-on with Rob Nelson and Jennifer Kolbe. Further coverage is due later this week, plus a reader Q&A next week.
TIGGEEK Newsroom · · 3 min read
The Guardian has published the first of several reports from inside Rockstar North. Keza MacDonald spent a day at the studio's Edinburgh headquarters and played through part of Vice City with Rob Nelson, one of the lead developers on Grand Theft Auto VI, and Jennifer Kolbe, a senior executive at the company. The piece is a studio visit and hands-on, not a full review.
A visit more than a decade in the making
MacDonald writes that a group of Rockstar North developers took their first research trips to Miami in 2015. Nelson describes those early visits as a way to absorb the place before formal research: its history, its "vibe," and "the juxtaposition between the extremes of society that are in Miami."
The game itself is due next week, on November 19. The story, The Guardian says, follows a criminal couple on the run named Jason and Lucia, set in Leonida, Rockstar's version of Florida, with Vice City standing in for Miami.
MacDonald says the setting comes first in Rockstar's process: the team immerses itself in the real place, then decides what players should be able to do there, and only then builds the story and characters around it.
Team size and the details Nelson wanted to show
The Guardian says Grand Theft Auto VI "was made by an enormous team of almost 5,000 people," with a relatively small group of long-serving decision-makers at the top. Lead writer Rupert Humphries, the article notes, has been at the company since 2008. Nelson's brief covers design, narrative, and animation.
In the demonstration, Nelson focused on small character animations: how Jason eats a hot dog; how he can take bites of a donut with one hand while sipping a beer with the other; and how, when he starts running, he hikes a six-pack of beers into the crook of his arm, with the liquid in the bottles sloshing around. At one point, MacDonald writes, Nelson was briefly upset during a jewelry-store stick-up because the placement of a security guard's foot did not look right.
Kolbe, speaking about earlier research for Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City, said people who had lived in New York their whole lives "were going to places they would never go to." The team, she said, then tries to give that experience to players. Nelson also recalled Miami research that included a nightclub until 4 a.m., a racetrack the next morning, a ride-along with police in South Beach, and bars in the Florida Keys.
Asked whether Rockstar could ever set a Grand Theft Auto game outside the United States, Nelson told The Guardian: "Never say never, but there's still so much to do in America."
What The Guardian says is still coming
MacDonald writes that readers can find more of the visit in The Guardian's Saturday magazine later this week. The paper also says next week's issue of its Pushing Buttons newsletter will be a large reader Q&A about the game.
The article published on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at 15:00 GMT (10:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time), and was later updated at 17:49 GMT.
The takeaway
The Guardian's visit is useful as a first look at how Rockstar is talking about Vice City, not as a verdict on the finished game. The details that landed on the page — a decade of Florida research, a team The Guardian puts at almost 5,000 people, and those small animations — will be easier to judge when the game is out on November 19. More of this reporting is scheduled later this week and in a reader Q&A next week.
Cover image: A panorama of Edinburgh, looking out from the castle, photographed by Chinnie666. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Rockstar North is based in the city.
Key facts
- Published
- November 11, 2026, 15:00 GMT (10:00 a.m. ET)
- Studio
- Rockstar North, Edinburgh
- Team size
- Almost 5,000 people, per The Guardian
- More coverage
- Saturday magazine later this week; reader Q&A next week