By Ray Ampoloquio · Aug 28, 2026 Grand Theft Auto VI tops Rockstar's mainline lineup at roughly 80 hours for the main story, ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2 at 50 to 51 hours.

Zoom image: Mainline GTA and Red Dead games ranked by playthrough length, using HowLongToBeat player averages. When Rob Nelson, Rockstar Games ' head of development at Rockstar North , told the New York Times his own Grand Theft Auto VI run took about 80 hours , it got us curious about how it stacked up against the rest of Rockstar's mainline open-world games line up. So, we did what we always do, and got comparing.

Taking advantage of player-reported averages from HowLongToBeat , we got a pretty good idea of how much content there really is in GTA 6 and how much more we haven't seen yet .

Rockstar's mainline open-world games by playthrough length

Released-game times are player-reported averages from HowLongToBeat.

From Grand Theft Auto III at around 15 hours in 2001, the mainline Grand Theft Auto titles crept up through Grand Theft Auto: Vce City , Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas , Grand Theft Auto IV , and Grand Theft Auto V , each settling somewhere in the high teens to low 30s for the main story. Then Red Dead Redemption 2 pushed past past 50 hours and toward 85 when you include optional content and side missions. Nelson's 80-hour figure suggests GTA 6 reaches even further, possibly doubling that if you listened to him and took your time doing all the free-roam activities Vice City and Leonida has to offer.

Also, Nelson works at Rockstar North . He knows the game inside out , so his run is almost certainly different from what a first-timer will spend feeling their way through the game.

With that said, it's best to treat these numbers as more of a ballpark figure. Player times will swing hard depending on your playstyle and Rockstar designed GTA 6 to factor that in as well , affecting the relationship dynamic between Lucia and Jason .

So, how much you explore, the difficulty you pick, and whether you reply to Lucia asking you if you'd still love her she was still a worm in the middle of a shootout, all affect that number. Also, GTA 6 's runtime is of one developer's single run reported to the New York Times rather than a player average. Rockstar has not issued an official length at all.

What the ranking really shows though is a studio that keeps asking for more of your time, and a fanbase that keeps happily handing it over.

Ray Ampoloquio Editor and News Writer, GTA BOOM

Ray is a GTA BOOM editor and news writer covering GTA 6, Rockstar and Take-Two, GTA Online and franchise history using primary-source reporting.