In the week following the 6 November 2025 announcement that Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI) had been delayed for a second time — from May 2026 to 19 November 2026 — a coordinated stream of reporting from Polygon, Gamepressure, 80 Level, PushSquare and others described employee morale at Rockstar Games as being "at rock bottom" (Hernandez, 2025; Blazewicz, 2025). The trigger was the abrupt dismissal of more than 30 staff — predominantly based at Rockstar North in Edinburgh and Rockstar Lincoln's QA arm — on the stated grounds of "gross misconduct" relating to alleged leaks of confidential information via a private Discord server. The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents the affected workers, characterised the firings as union-busting and a pretext to dismantle a 250-strong organising effort that had been growing in the months prior to GTA VI's launch window (Hernandez, 2025; Blazewicz, 2025). This report synthesises the available reporting on the morale collapse, its origins, and its likely production consequences.
On 30 October–5 November 2025, Rockstar Games dismissed at least 34 employees across its UK studios. According to Bloomberg's reporting, the company informed Take-Two Interactive's shareholders that the affected staff had been terminated for leaking company secrets (Hernandez, 2025). However, an anonymous current employee — whose identity was independently verified by moderators of GTAForums — posted a detailed first-person account contradicting that narrative. The post described colleagues being summoned to "friendly chats", handed termination letters citing "gross misconduct", and given no opportunity to review the alleged evidence (Blazewicz, 2025). HR reportedly proceeded with dismissal calls even when employees were on leave, including during one staffer's panic attack.
The phrase that catalysed the morale story across the gaming press came directly from this post: "Morale in the studio is at rock bottom. When we should be excited about what's to come over the next year we are now totally deflated and our trust and confidence in others is totally shot" (Blazewicz, 2025; Hernandez, 2025). Polygon corroborated this language and added that remaining employees described being "fearful to so much as acknowledge what is happening right outside studio doors" — a reference to the IWGB-led protest that gathered outside Rockstar North's Edinburgh offices on 6 November 2025 (Hernandez, 2025).
Gamepressure's coverage, authored by Jacob Blazewicz, foregrounded the structural argument that Rockstar's leadership now appeared to prioritise dismantling its internal union over completing GTA VI. The article noted that among those dismissed were "team leaders, senior artists, animators, programmers" — categories of staff that the post's author argued were "not easy to replace and who are essential during the development of a game", particularly one of GTA VI's scope (Blazewicz, 2025). The piece reproduced the IWGB-aligned position verbatim: "Rockstar have admitted they care more about crushing the union than they do about getting GTA VI out on time, looking after their fans or treating staff with dignity and respect" (Blazewicz, 2025).
Gamepressure also drew the causal link between the firings and the delay announcement that had been issued the same week. While Rockstar's official line cited the need for "additional polish" to justify the six-month slip, Blazewicz's reporting suggested that a more plausible reading was capacity loss: the removal of senior production staff at a critical late-development juncture (Blazewicz, 2025). This framing was echoed by 80 Level, which titled its 7 November 2025 piece "Morale at Rock Bottom, Stocks Are Down, GTA VI Delayed: What's Going on at Rockstar?" and noted that Take-Two's share price had fallen materially in response to the convergence of the delay and the labour dispute (80 Level, 2025).
Patricia Hernandez's Polygon piece, published 7 November 2025, placed the morale collapse within Rockstar's longer history of labour controversy. The article referenced Jason Schreier's 2018 Kotaku investigation into 100-hour work weeks during Red Dead Redemption 2's development, and Rockstar's 2020 internal memo pledging to "improve the culture at the company" through better communication, leadership training, and safe avenues for raising concerns (Hernandez, 2025). The 2025 firings, Polygon argued, represented a direct repudiation of those commitments. The IWGB statement, read aloud through a megaphone outside Rockstar's Edinburgh office, reinforced the point: "We weren't leaking anything or trying to harm the company...we were trying to understand our workplace and make it better" (Hernandez, 2025).
Polygon's article also drew on Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's recent earnings-call statements about aiming for "perfection" on GTA VI — a framing that, in context, suggested the same crunch-inducing pressure that had defined past Rockstar launches was again being applied, but now without the goodwill of a workforce that had spent three years organising for better conditions (Hernandez, 2025).
The convergence of low morale, lost senior expertise, and active legal disputes carries tangible production risk for the new November 2026 release date. Reporting from TweakTown, GamingBible and Beebom — all citing the same verified GTAForums post — flagged that a third GTA VI delay was now considered a credible possibility (TweakTown, 2025; Hernandez, 2025). The dismissed staff included people who had been at Rockstar for "nearly two decades", with institutional knowledge of legacy systems, mission scripting pipelines, and animation workflows that cannot easily be transferred to replacement hires (Hernandez, 2025). The remaining workforce, by the anonymous employee's account, is now operating in a climate of fear, with social contact between colleagues at the "tea prep" reportedly chilled by the perception that any union-aligned conversation could trigger dismissal (Blazewicz, 2025).
The October 2025 firings and the morale collapse that followed represent a watershed moment in Rockstar's labour history. The convergence of converging press accounts — Polygon, Gamepressure, 80 Level, PushSquare and others — built on a single verified internal source whose language ("rock bottom", "totally deflated", "trust and confidence is totally shot") became the dominant frame for the studio's late-development phase. Whether the situation can be stabilised before the November 2026 launch will depend on whether Rockstar reinstates the dismissed workers, as IWGB demands, or pursues the dismissals through tribunal — an outcome that would extend the dispute deep into GTA VI's release campaign.
80 Level (2025) 'Morale at Rock Bottom, Stocks Are Down, GTA VI Delayed: What's Going on at Rockstar?', 80 Level, 7 November. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/morale-at-rock-bottom-stocks-are-down-gta-vi-delayed-what-s-going-on-at-rockstar (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Blazewicz, J. (2025) 'Rockstar North morale is said to be exceptionally low, and not necessarily because of another GTA 6 delay', Gamepressure, 7 November. Available at: https://www.gamepressure.com/newsroom/rockstar-north-morale-is-said-to-be-exceptionally-low-and-not-nec/z988f3 (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Hernandez, P. (2025) 'As GTA 6 gets delayed, fired Rockstar employees paint a grim picture', Polygon, 7 November. Available at: https://www.polygon.com/gta-6-delay-rockstar-employees-protest/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
PushSquare (2025) "'Morale in the Studio Is at Rock Bottom': Rockstar Whistleblower Alleges Union Busting as GTA 6 Is Delayed", PushSquare, 6 November. Available at: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2025/11/morale-in-the-studio-is-at-rock-bottom-rockstar-whistleblower-alleges-union-busting-as-gta-6-is-delayed (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
TweakTown (2025) 'GTA 6 developer reveals morale at the studio is at "rock bottom", fears of third delay', TweakTown, 7 November. Available at: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/108735/gta-6-developer-reveals-morale-at-the-studio-is-at-rock-bottom-fears-of-third-delay/index.html (Accessed: 14 May 2026).