$2 billion, 12 years, arrests: How world's most expensive video game cost more than Avatar, Avengers, Star Wars combined
The most expensive film ever made is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The seventh instalment of the Skywalker saga cost a staggering $447 million to make, and eventually paid back Disney all that and more with a billion-dollar run at the box office. Big numbers, right? But what if we told you that a video game cost more to make. Don't be surprised; it's not exactly Super Mario or Donkey Kong we are talking about, but the most ambitious game ever made. One that took a dozen years and over a billion dollars to make, and even a few arrests along the way.
GTA VI (in full Grand Theft Auto VI) is the most expensive video game made in history. The eighth Grand Theft Auto main series game (and the 16th overall), GTA VI, is scheduled for release on May 26 next year (2026). But it has been in development since 2014. The Independent reported that the film has cost its makers, Rockstar Games, $1-2 billion, making it the biggest entertainment project in history. Just how big is that number? Even the conservative estimate - $1 billion - is more than the combined production budgets of Avatar, Avengers, and Star Wars. The three films cost $700 million together. GTA VI has broken the record for most expensive video game, beating Scopely's Monopoly Go, which cost just under a billion dollars, largely all on marketing, though. Genshin Impact ($900 million), Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War ($700 million), and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare ($640 million) round up the top 5.
Rockstar first began work on GTA VI after the release of GTA V in 2014. But the preliminary work took over three years. Actual production only began in 2018 once Red Dead Redemption 2 - another big game from Rockstar - was released. The development was clouded in secrecy, and no release date was announced. Fans and journalists noted that the game was taking longer than usual when there was no update till 2020. After COVID-19 struck, Rockstar allowed employees to work remotely, which slowed the development further. For the first time, Rockstar gave a release date of 2025. But soon, it became clear that the game would overshoot the target. The reason was leaks.
The first leak to hit the game was in 2022, when a social media user known as "teapotuberhacker" published 90 videos to the website GTAForums showing 50 minutes of work-in-progress game footage. Described as one of the biggest leaks in video game history, the incident sparked a legal war from Rockstar against the hacker, eventually leading to their arrest. In January 2025, another leak showed gameplay on PlayStation 5. The video, posted on Reddit, was later deleted. Eventually, a trailer came out in May 2025, and the release date of May 26, 2026, was announced.
The delays GTA VI faced and Rockstar's refusal to address them frustrated many fans. Over the years, this resulted in an internet meme - 'before GTA 6'. In this, social media users would unlikely things taking place, noting that even such a bizarre thing happened before GTA 6 was released. Ironically, this increased the anticipation for the game even more.
Like its predecessors, GTA VI is an open-world game set in the fictional U.S. state of Leonida, which is based on Florida. The game features multiple cities and two protagonists, a change from the previous GTA games. The story follows a criminal duo: Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, the latter being the series' first non-optional female protagonist. Like other GTA games in the past, the game parodies modern pop culture, with the trailer including pot shots at social media and influencer culture in particular.
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