Ten years, thousands of staff and a billion dollars: the exclusive inside story of Grand Theft Auto VI

The latest instalment of the epic crime saga is finally here. We visit Rockstar Games for a hands-on encounter with the cultural event of the decade – and can confirm it’s more than lives up to the hype It still comes as a surprise for many to learn that Grand Theft Auto, the bra

The latest instalment of the epic crime saga is finally here. We visit Rockstar Games for a hands-on encounter with the cultural event of the decade – and can confirm it’s more than lives up to the hype It still comes as a surprise for many to learn that Grand Theft Auto, the brazenly American crime series that has been one of the world’s most popular and most controversial video games for the past 20 years, is mainly made in Scotland. But if you grow up in Edinburgh, developer Rockstar North is part of the background mythology of the place.

Plenty of people passed through this studio at some point or another in the 2000s, as game testers or employees. As a student in Edinburgh at that time, I would hear rumours of wild parties at the executives’ houses, as decadent as those in the game. At a bar or a birthday or a housewarming, you might meet a guy who claimed to have come up with one of the puerile puns that grace the in-game businesses (eg Nutsaki, a Japanese restaurant, or the fried-chicken chain Cluckin’ Bell).

Grand Theft Auto is now made by a huge team of nearly 5,000 people around the world but its central nervous system is still in Holyrood, in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat. The setting of the latest Grand Theft Auto game really could not be further from the Scottish capital. Grand Theft Auto VI takes us to Vice City in the state of Leonida, a parody of Miami, Florida.

It is a neon-soaked metropolis of sleaze and struggle, hard-partying excess juxtaposed with a barely concealed criminal underworld and unpredictable Florida madness. Continue reading...