Rockstar Toronto (legally Rockstar Games Toronto ULC), based in Oakville, Ontario, is one of the longest-tenured studios within the Rockstar Games network. Originally established in the early 1980s as Imagexcel, the studio passed through ownership by GameTek and Alternative Reality Technologies before being absorbed into Take-Two Interactive in 1997 and rebranded under the Rockstar Games label as Rockstar Canada in 1999, then Rockstar Toronto in 2002 (Wikipedia, 2026). The studio's historical role has centred on porting, technical engineering, and original development work that has helped shape Rockstar's flagship franchises, including Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, and Manhunt. Its involvement in Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI) places it at the heart of one of the most anticipated entertainment releases of the decade, but the studio drew significant public attention in late 2025 following three controversial dismissals tied to alleged unionisation activity.
After being acquired by Take-Two and folded into Rockstar Games in 1999, the studio's earliest contributions under the Rockstar banner were the Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 and London 1961 expansion packs (Wikipedia, 2026). It went on to port Oni and Max Payne to the PlayStation 2 in 2001, before being renamed Rockstar Toronto in 2002 when Take-Two acquired Barking Dog Studios and renamed it Rockstar Vancouver (Wikipedia, 2026).
The studio's signature original title was The Warriors (2005), an adaptation of the 1979 cult film, which debuted at E3 2005 and shipped that October to broadly positive reception (Wikipedia, 2026). Although Rockstar Toronto did not develop the original Manhunt (2003), which was led by Rockstar North, it did handle the Wii port of Manhunt 2 in 2007, alongside the Wii port of Bully: Scholarship Edition in 2008 (Wikipedia, 2026). The studio subsequently became Rockstar's primary PC porting house, delivering the Windows versions of Grand Theft Auto IV (2008), Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (2010), Max Payne 3 (2012), and Grand Theft Auto V (2015), the latter promoted by Rockstar as the "ultimate" edition of the game (Wikipedia, 2026).
In July 2012, Rockstar Vancouver was shuttered and merged into Rockstar Toronto, with the Ontario government contributing CA$2 million toward a custom-built Oakville facility. Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar's vice-president of publishing and operations, stated that consolidating Canadian development into "a single Canadian team will make for a powerful creative force for future projects," with more than fifty new positions planned (Lien, 2012). The studio also contributed to the PC release of Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2019 (Wikipedia, 2026).
Rockstar Toronto's specific scope of work on GTA VI has not been disclosed in detail by Rockstar Games, consistent with the company's traditionally opaque communications. However, both Wikipedia and CBC News confirm that the studio is among those actively contributing to GTA VI development during 2025 (Ore, 2025; Wikipedia, 2026). Given its established expertise — gameplay engineering inherited from The Warriors, multi-platform porting on every mainline GTA title since GTA IV, and PC optimisation experience honed on GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 — Rockstar Toronto's contribution is widely understood within the industry to encompass engine support, platform engineering, and production assistance for the global Rockstar pipeline coordinated by Rockstar North in Edinburgh.
On 30 October 2025, three Rockstar Toronto developers were terminated on the same day that thirty-one employees at Rockstar North in the United Kingdom were also fired (Ore, 2025). According to CBC News, each Toronto worker was "brought into a room with an HR person" and told they were being dismissed for breaching a non-disclosure agreement, then immediately escorted from the premises by security (Ore, 2025). Rockstar Games publicly characterised the conduct as "gross misconduct" involving the leaking of company secrets.
Union representatives strongly contested this framing. Nasr Ahmed, staff organiser at Communications Workers of America (CWA) Canada, called Rockstar's allegations "patently false" and noted that no evidence had been produced for either the Canadian or British workers (Ore, 2025). All thirty-four dismissed employees were members of a Discord group used by industry workers to discuss working conditions and unionisation, which Ahmed and the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) identified as the sole common link among them. IWGB president Alex Marshall described the firings as "one of the most blatant and ruthless acts of union busting in the history of the games industry" (Ore, 2025).
In December 2025, Ahmed helped organise a solidarity picket outside the Oakville offices, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer publicly called the firings "deeply concerning" (Ore, 2025). Ontario's Minister of Labour, David Piccini, affirmed that workers in the province "have the right to raise concerns about their workplace" (Ore, 2025). The episode drew renewed scrutiny to the industry's historical hostility toward unionisation and to Rockstar's documented "crunch" culture, previously highlighted around the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018.
The dismissals carry real implications for GTA VI's development environment. The loss of three Toronto staff is numerically small relative to total headcount, but the timing — mid-development on Rockstar's most commercially critical title — and the union-organising context have, according to CWA organisers, created "a chilling effect" across the studio's workforce (Ore, 2025). The controversy contrasts sharply with parallel unionisation successes at id Software and Ubisoft Halifax during the same period, suggesting the industrial-relations landscape surrounding GTA VI's release will remain contested.
Lien, T. (2012) 'Rockstar expands Toronto studio, closes Vancouver studio', Polygon, 9 July. Available at: https://www.polygon.com/gaming/2012/7/9/3147937/rockstar-expands-toronto-studio-to-ontario (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Ore, J. (2025) 'Canadian among fired workers from Grand Theft Auto studio says they just want their jobs back', CBC News, 22 December. Available at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/grand-theft-auto-canadian-fired-worker-9.7024478 (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia (2026) Rockstar Toronto. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_Toronto (Accessed: 14 May 2026).