GTA III Turns 25 Four Weeks Before GTA 6: From 23 People to 4,711

• Current status: GTA III's 25th anniversary is today, October 22, 2026. No official Rockstar anniversary plans have been announced.
• Last verified: October 22, 2026.
• Sources checked: iGrandTheftAuto (Vermeij interview), Sutato, Bloomberg, Rockstar's 10th-anniversary Newswire post.
• What is confirmed: GTA III released on PS2 in October 2001. GTA 6 launches November 19, 2026.
• What is not confirmed yet: any GTA III anniversary content, re-release or in-game nod in GTA 6.

Reported (Obbe Vermeij to iGrandTheftAuto guest writer James McGuirk):

• It was nearly always broken. "Like it hardly ever happened that you got through an entire mission without it crashing."
• Frame rate was a struggle. "It was only at the very end we got to 30 frames per second, but most of the time when you're developing, it's more like 7 or 8."
• It came together late. "Maybe 6 months before release, we got the frame rate up, we got most of the bugs fixed, the music went in, and all of a sudden it was like polishing a gem."
• E3 2001 worried the team. The first showing felt underwhelming: "We kind of all felt like, hmm, did we get this wrong?"
• It sold on word of mouth. "It sort of sold well enough, but not spectacularly; it just kept selling."
• The team was tiny. About 23 core developers at DMA Design in Edinburgh, and Vermeij's own team started as 10 people on the same day.

Reported (Bloomberg): Rockstar had 2,441 staff when Red Dead Redemption 2 shipped in 2018 and 4,711 as of August 2026 (Bloomberg). For the long gap, see why GTA 6 took so long.

Analysis, building on Sutato's summary of GTA III's legacy:

• A city you unlock in stages. GTA III's three islands opened as you progressed. GTA 6's Leonida has six named regions.
• Radio as world-building. GTA III's stations gave the city a voice. GTA 6 has Rockstar's biggest radio and TV ad slate yet, plus an original score by Justice.
• Walk, drive, steal, repeat. The seamless on-foot to in-car loop is still the core, now with locked cars, key cloners and trackers.
• Freedom over plan. Vermeij says GTA III's design kept changing: "anyone could come in in the morning and say, 'Hey, I want to try this new thing.'" Rockstar describes something similar today, with developers free to add their own details. See no one person knows all of GTA 6.

Reported (Sutato): Rockstar hasn't announced plans for the 25th anniversary. GTA III is still available as part of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition.

Confirmed (history): for the 10th anniversary in 2011, Rockstar released GTA III on mobile and a limited-edition Claude action figure (Rockstar Newswire).

Analysis: with GTA 6 four weeks out, any anniversary nod is likelier to be a social post than a product. Rockstar's X account posted a GTA Online update this morning, not a GTA III tribute.

The game that made GTA a 3D open world turns 25 just as its biggest sequel arrives. The contrast is the story: a broken, 7fps build made by a couple of dozen people, versus a studio of thousands.

Sources checked

• iGrandTheftAuto: GTA 3 at 25, Obbe Vermeij reflects
• Sutato: Grand Theft Auto III turns 25
• Bloomberg: Inside the making of GTA 6
• Rockstar Newswire: GTA III 10th Anniversary Edition

Update log: 2026-10-22: Published.