'We Are Humans Too' Pleads GTA 6 Dev in Crunch Report

"Please be lenient on us, we are humans too." That's how a Glassdoor review, allegedly written by a QA analyst at Rockstar India's Bengaluru studio, ends. The anonymous post, which went live on May 1, describes unpaid overtime, colleagues working until 3 AM after already completing full daytime shifts, and management compressing five to six months of work into two to three. The reviewer rated Rockstar 2 out of 5 stars and titled their assessment "Exciting projects but unrealistic workload and expectations."

A second review, posted on April 30 by someone identifying as a former game tester in Washington DC, gave Rockstar a perfect 5 stars but still flagged "hectic days" and "bad crunching." Neither review has been independently verified, and Glassdoor's anonymous system means anyone can post without proof of employment. But the details are specific enough, and the timing close enough to GTA 6's November 19 launch, that they've spread rapidly across fan communities.

Rockstar insider Reece "Kiwi Talkz" Reilly didn't dispute the claims. "What you call crunch is just normal day-to-day work in India, so 100% yes lol," he wrote on X. "India isn't known for work-life balance, I spend a lot of time there due to family and friends, and I know how crazy they work." He added that he personally knows developers at Rockstar India and plans to visit them in June.

That response bothers me more than the Glassdoor post itself. Framing brutal working conditions as a regional norm isn't context; it's an excuse. If Rockstar is operating a studio in Bengaluru, the conditions inside that studio are Rockstar's responsibility, regardless of what the broader local labour culture looks like. And the idea that QA staff are being asked to crunch without overtime pay, at a company that has reportedly spent nearly $3 billion on staff costs since 2019, is difficult to read as anything other than a choice.

Rockstar's crunch history

None of this exists in a vacuum. During Red Dead Redemption 2's development, reports of 100-hour work weeks became a major industry flashpoint. Some players even believed developers had embedded criticism of their own working conditions inside the game's item descriptions. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser initially described those hours as something he was proud of before walking the comment back. The studio later pledged to improve its culture.

Eight years on, the language in this Glassdoor review reads like it could have been written in 2018. The scale of the project is different, the studio is different, but the pattern is familiar: an impossibly ambitious game on a hard deadline, and the people furthest from the spotlight absorbing the pressure.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has been publicly confident about the November 19 date, recently joking that millions of people will call in sick the day GTA 6 launches. He's also admitted to being "terrified" of how the finished game will be judged. Those are honest admissions, but they sit uncomfortably next to reports that QA staff are losing sleep and flagging mental health concerns. Fans have also pointed out that GTA 6 has already been delayed twice, raising questions about how crunch can still be this severe after two schedule extensions.

Take-Two's next earnings call in late May could bring questions about working conditions, though historically these calls focus on financials and release timelines rather than labour practices. Meanwhile, Rockstar also posted a new temporary job listing for a Production Artist to work on "global campaigns," which strongly suggests marketing for GTA 6 is about to ramp up. Zelnick has previously said Take-Two doesn't spend on marketing until close to release.

I keep coming back to that final line in the review. Not the overtime hours, not the compressed timelines, but the plea. "We are humans too" is not the language of someone venting about a bad week. It reads like someone who feels invisible. Whether or not this specific review is authentic, the conditions it describes are ones Rockstar has been credibly accused of before, and the studio has never fully answered for them.