GTA 6 Studio Rockstar North Rocked By Early Morning Explosion
Early this morning, the internet was shocked to learn of an explosion within the Rockstar North building in Edinburgh, Scotland. Rockstar North is best known as the developer of Grand Theft Auto VI and the wider Grand Theft Auto series back to Grand Theft Auto III, with some forays into other Rockstar properties like L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3, Manhunt 2, and the first Red Dead Redemption.
Fortunately, no lives were lost in the explosion, and the blast reportedly stems from the boiler room rather than an overt bombing attempt. Some structural damage was reported to the building, but firefighters worked on the damage for about three hours prior to leaving the scene, according to the Herald Scotland from which this story initially broke.
To say the least...wow. It's incredibly fortunate that seemingly no one was hurt by the boiler room explosion at Rockstar North, which went off two minutes after midnight at 5:02 am. Whether any hardware, files, or other equipment pertinent to the development of Grand Theft Auto was damaged remains to be seen, though no relevant social media posts or announcements have been made pointing to injury or damage to the team or its equipment.
This makes yet another delay to Grand Theft Auto VI (past the already-delayed November 19th date) seem unlikely at this time, but depending on who was in the building at the time and how the team chooses to respond to the incident, this could be seen as a valid reason to push the release date again.
Alternately, delays caused by the explosive incident may also lead to Rockstar to enforce further crunch on its workforce, a practice that has already drawn scrutiny through a very public lawsuit following the laying off of several Rockstar North employees. Until further information is shared or announcements are made, however, there's really no way to ascertain the exact long-term impact of this incident, if any.
In any case, we're just glad to hear that Rockstar North's developers were unharmed by the explosion, and that structural damage to the studio's office building was fixed up in a speedy manner.
