Grand Theft Auto 6 is already finished and currently being polished, claim several sources who have formed a consensus with each other.

Surprised? It certainly did not seem that way when the Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks happened last year. At the time, the leaked footage was of a game that seemed to have very poor graphics. While some gamers misunderstood this as proof the game’s development was going poorly, the common consensus was that it indicated the game was still very early in development, and may not even be releasing until the next console generation. Rockstar also claimed that it was early gameplay footage, and suggested they were far from release.

With that in mind, we will sum up different statements by three sources who claim to have insider information on Grand Theft Auto 6’s development.

Tez2 referred to the tags those early Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks had. One video had the tag “game_win64_beta.exe”, another had “game_win64_debug.exe”, and a third video had “game_win64_bankrelease.exe”. Tez2 claims the bankrelease build is a debug build with functionality aiming to hit “feature complete”. On the other hand, the beta build has extra functionality, and is intended for the “content complete” milestone.

Corey Webb on Twitter replied to this claim, stating that “feature complete” was aiming at full UI functionality. The “content complete” milestone indicates that all game functions are complete and playable. Corey then says this:

“This would ultimate imply the game is “finished,” but is being polished up and getting prepared for final stages before release.”

Finally, los at Reddit, following up on Corey’s claim, says this:

“Interesting… as a developer I support Corey Webbs answer, I do think that the game is fully finished. For now I also think R* is just polishing the game and fixing bugs so it would be a bit smooth on release and maybe right now they are making trailers and just awaiting go signal for the proper teaser or whatever. I do hope we get something this year.”

Now, Rockstar did try to deflect the issue by claiming that the leaks were of early footage, however Tez2 pushes back on this in another post.

To sum this post, Tez2 compared the build ID numbers between Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto 6. He came to the conclusion that Rockstar changed the way they numbered their builds between the two games because they have a lot of sub versions in-between.  Because of this, Tez2 believes that Rockstar started work on Grand Theft Auto 6 between late 2018 to early 2019.

If Grand Theft Auto 6 takes as long to make as Grand Theft Auto 5, the release window for Grand Theft Auto 6 falls somewhere in 2024.

To sum, Tez2, Corey Webbs, and los don’t have any new insider knowledge of their own. However, they have done some Mycroft Holmes level sleuthing to come to the conclusion that Grand Theft Auto 6 is likely already finished and is just getting polished up, especially at the graphics department. It’s as good an educated guess as one can make, but one that Rockstar can also debunk as quickly as tomorrow.