Former Rockstar Games Developer Reveals How GTA Trailers Are Made

Former Rockstar Games developer David O’Reilly has shared some behind-the-scenes details about how trailers for the GTA series, including GTA 6, are created. In an interview, he explained that putting together a trailer is a major, collaborative effort within the studio. Once a trailer enters production, it becomes the top priority—any bugs that could affect the trailer get fixed first.

O’Reilly noted that when working on a trailer, the team focuses on what will actually appear on screen—these areas of the game world are polished to perfection. Everything outside the frame, however, might remain unfinished. This, he says, is why the final game can sometimes look different from what’s shown in the trailer—the trailer is meant to project the expected quality, not to represent a fully completed product.

He also emphasized that it’s unrealistic to expect trailers to be completely accurate. Unlike movies, where trailers are cut from already finished footage, game trailers are often assembled before development is complete, and the game is temporarily cleaned up just for the video.

As a reminder, Rockstar Games released the second GTA 6 trailer in May, which has since racked up over 125 million views and 6.1 million likes (compared to 85,800 dislikes) on YouTube. Previously, we published a feature compiling a hundred details found in the trailer.