Somewhere between the Burj Khalifa, Dubai’s tallest building, and the internet's favourite rumour mill, a number got attached to GTA 6 that Rockstar is not willing to let slide. So, how much did GTA 6 cost? It has been claimed that GTA 6 cost north of $1.5 billion, even $2 bn, more than it took to build the Burj Khalifa. Rockstar’s response, via a Bloomberg deep-dive: not true. Exactly how much it cost, remains conveniently unsaid. Whichever number ends up correct, dodging one record doesn't get GTA 6 out of another, because even a slightly smaller bill still leaves it towering over everything the industry has ever spent on a single game.
Rockstar head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe called out the $1.5 billion figure directly, tracing back to a July 2025 Gulf News report that pegged the budget at $2 billion against the Burj Khalifa's $1.5 billion.
Earlier in the year, Business Insider had floated $1-1.5 billion based on analyst estimates, with Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick refusing to share a figure but admitting, simply, "it was expensive".
Rockstar's employee headcount has nearly doubled since Red Dead Redemption 2, from 2,441 staff to 4,711. That in itself adds weight to the spend and we haven't even started talking about the use of new technology that is pricey, to say the least.
Whatever the exact figure, other games do not come close to GTA 6. Star Citizen's billion-dollar-plus spend is spread across years of ongoing ship sales, not a single production.
Bungie’s latest extraction shooter reportedly ran past $250 million, Concord’s development deal sat around $200 million, and court documents have put The Last of Us: Part II and Horizon Forbidden West above $200 million each.
Even Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s $700 million, revealed last year, covered its entire life cycle.
With GTA 6 preorders already tracking toward the billion mark in revenue, GTA 6 cost looks less like a gamble and more like a number everyone expects to get paid back, fast.