GTA 6 reportedly featured four protagonists and three cities before being scaled back

gamesradar.com:

Grand Theft Auto 6 originally featured four protagonists and a story that spread out over three playable cities.

Last week, a new report claimed Rockstar had overhauled its workplace culture, trading out crunch and cynicism for healthier alternatives. The report also claimed that GTA 6 would star a female Latina protagonist as one of two playable characters because of these changes.

Now, a second report has shed new light on the sequel's development. According to Axios (opens in new tab), the original development ideas for GTA 6 revolved around three protagonists and would've seen the game play out across three entire cities, instead of just the standard one as we've seen with GTA games in the past.

According to this new report, GTA 6 now has a "scaled-down scope for launch." This could mean that Rockstar was originally envisioning a far larger project when starting work on GTA 6, but has since scaled back as part of stopping its developers crunching on projects.

The first report originally claimed that work on GTA 6 was proceeding at a slower pace than originally planned. However, this is because Rockstar is now apparently giving its developers more time to work on projects, instead of rushing games through development as quickly as possible, inflicting brutal periods of crunch on its staff in the process.

Rockstar previously acknowledged that GTA 6 needs to be the "best it can possibly be." While the apparent new positive workplace culture has already had an impact on GTA 6, it remains to be seen whether Rockstar maintains this improved workplace culture throughout GTA 6's extended development. 

Rockstar is also engaging in a big hiring push, which some speculate could tie into GTA 6's development.