Kiwi Talkz, AKA podcaster Reece Reilly, has chimed in on the current stories about Rockstar’s layoffs and Grand Theft Auto 6’s delay.
The news hit last week that Rockstar laid off 40-something employees in their studios in Canada and the UK. Rockstar has officially stated that these layoffs are because of leaks.
However, they are now facing protests amid accusations that these layoffs were intended to block these workers from forming unions.
Subsequently, Rockstar just announced that they have delayed Grand Theft Auto 6 from May to November 2026. Fans are not taking the delay well, as you can imagine.
But it has also led to rampant speculation. While it’s understandable if fans are worried if Grand Theft Auto 6 is in a bad state, or if Rockstar is not treating their employees fairly.
But that concern shouldn’t be justification for spreading misinformation based on speculation.
It is under this lens that Reece Reilly, AKA Kiwi Talkz, has chimed in with what he claims he’s heard about the studio.
Kiwi Talkz Chimes In
Reilly posted this on Twitter:
1. The union layoffs in the UK and the delay are not related.
There are 6000+ employees working at Rockstar, you aren’t delaying a game over 35 people getting laid off, that’s not how these things work, not to mention Rockstar devs were telling me about a delay well before the union layoffs.
2. Rockstar is EXTREMELY compartmentalised, a huge number of staff don’t even know whats in a lot of the game because they are only exposed to the specific chunk of work that they are assigned.
This is done because the game is so large in scope and also for security reasons
3. I’ve seen apparently some “insider” saying its being delayed till 2027 and the game is in a messy state. I highly doubt this and no one I have spoken to has corroborated it.
The game is content complete, all the work from here on out is optimising the hell out of it and making sure all the systems work to prevent a Cyberpunk scenario.
4. Leaks from a former Rockstar employee has said that morale is low and no doubt that is the case at Edinburgh but that doesn’t translate to ALL of Rockstar.
Bangalore for example operates completely differently and has a different culture to Edinburgh.
As Reilly notes in his profile, he is best known for having interviewed staff at Retro Studios, Valve, and Bethesda. This does not rule out that he has insider information at Rockstar or Take-Two, but he hasn’t built a reputation for getting this information correct.
In any case, the most interesting detail here is Reilly’s claim that the game is content complete. That matches up with Strauss Zelnick’s claim in today’s investor meeting at Take-Two.
Zelnick talked about making sure their game is polished when it comes out. He was alluding to botched releases of games like Cyberpunk 2077, although he didn’t name it.
