All of those GTA VI leaks are starting to add up. That's according to Bloomberg, which reports that Rockstar Games is asking employees to return to the office five days a week come April. One of the reasons? The developer is entering the final stages of development on the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6, and they're worried about security breaches.
Per the Bloomberg report, in a staff email sent on Wednesday, Jenn Kolbe, Rockstar Head of Publishing, said the decision was made to increase productivity and security measures. Remember that leak in September of 2022 that led to the leaker in question being sentenced to indefinite confinement in a hospital because he said he would immediately do it again if released? And then remember how the trailer Rockstar was going to release last December leaked a day early? Yeah, that probably has something to do with this.
Kolbe also said the company has found "tangible benefits" from having staff work in person.
“Making these changes now puts us in the best position to deliver the next Grand Theft Auto at the level of quality and polish we know it requires, along with a publishing roadmap that matches the scale and ambition of the game,” she wrote.
Rockstar isn't the first studio to implement return-to-office protocol. Last September, IGN's Rebekah Valentine revealed in a report that Ubisoft employees were fuming over what they called broken promises in regards to that studio's return-to-office mandate.
Plus, plenty of games have been developed remotely successfully, including Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which recently blew past ten million copies sold. Rockstar has claimed that the leaks probably didn't hurt them, but they seem awful tired of them.
We've reached out to Rockstar for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
Will Borger is an IGN freelancer. You can find him on Twitter @bywillborger.
