It is difficult to imagine GTA Online as anything other than one of Rockstar Games’ biggest successes. However, a former Rockstar developer has revealed that the team once believed GTA Online was going to fail when it first launched.
Former Rockstar Games developer Matt Freedman recently looked back at the early days of GTA Online and explained just how uncertain the team was about the game’s future.
Rockstar Developers Thought GTA Online Would Fail
Speaking in an interview with Eldorado, Freedman described GTA Online as something of an “afterthought” during its original development.
According to the former Rockstar developer, the team was convinced that the online mode would struggle after launch. Even QA testers reportedly worried that there was not enough content to keep players busy.
Freedman recalled testers telling him that there were only around four hours of content to experience in GTA Online and that the team feared they were “in so much trouble.”
Despite those concerns, Rockstar decided to launch the game and see what happened.
Then everything changed.
GTA Online Became a Phenomenon
Rather than failing, GTA Online took off.
Rockstar quickly responded to the game’s unexpected popularity by releasing more content and continuing to expand the online experience.
What initially looked like a relatively small multiplayer component eventually became a massive long-running service that would continue receiving updates for years.
Freedman credited Rockstar for quickly following up with additional content and keeping the game alive as its player base continued to grow.
Today, GTA Online has become a major part of the Grand Theft Auto franchise and a huge contributor to the long-term success of GTA 5.
GTA Online Changed Rockstar’s Plans for GTA 5
The success of GTA Online also had a major impact on Rockstar’s future plans.
Rockstar had originally been working on GTA 5 single-player DLC, but the enormous success of GTA Online meant that more resources were needed to support the multiplayer game.
At the same time, Rockstar was developing Red Dead Redemption 2, making it difficult for the studio to work on everything simultaneously.
As GTA Online continued to grow, Rockstar increasingly focused its resources on the online experience.
13 Years Later, GTA Online Is Still Going Strong
GTA Online originally launched in October 2013, and more than a decade later, Rockstar is still supporting the game with major updates.
That longevity makes Freedman’s comments even more surprising.
What Rockstar developers once believed could fail ultimately became one of the longest-running and most successful online experiences in gaming.
With GTA 6 now approaching its release, the future of GTA Online is once again a major topic among fans.
Rockstar has confirmed that GTA 6 will launch as a single-player experience, while the company has remained relatively quiet about its long-term plans for the next generation of GTA Online.
For now, however, the history of GTA Online serves as a reminder that even Rockstar Games did not fully predict just how successful its multiplayer experiment would become.
From “Afterthought” to Rockstar’s Online Phenomenon
GTA Online’s story is perhaps one of the biggest examples of an unexpected success in modern gaming.
Rockstar developers reportedly entered launch expecting the mode to struggle, yet players turned it into a phenomenon that has lasted for more than a decade.
And with GTA 6 releasing on November 19, 2026, fans will be watching closely to see whether Rockstar can repeat that success with whatever comes next.
This article is based on comments from former Rockstar Games developer Matt Freedman and information reported from his interview with Eldorado.