When Edge reviewed Grand Theft Auto: Vice City at Christmas 2002, the developer box no longer said DMA Design. It said “In-house (Rockstar North)”. The studio that had made Lemmings in Dundee now worked in Edinburgh under a new name, and it had just followed Grand Theft Auto III with a game the magazine called “one of the year’s essential games”. Rockstar North has made the main Grand Theft Auto games ever since. The last of them, GTA V, has sold more than 230 million copies, and the next, GTA VI, is due in November 2026.
Fast facts
- Named: 2002. Before that it was DMA Design, founded in Dundee in 1988.
- Based: Edinburgh.
- Owner: Take-Two Interactive, as part of Rockstar Games.
- Best-known games: the Grand Theft Auto series from Vice City (2002) onwards, and Manhunt (2003).
From DMA to Rockstar North
The DMA Design entry tells the earlier story. Take-Two bought DMA from Infogrames at the end of 1999 and moved the studio from Dundee to Edinburgh. Edge reported in 2001 that most of the staff left after the move. The studio had 3D experience from Body Harvest and Wild Metal Country, but it now needed Criterion’s RenderWare middleware “to bring the team up to speed” on Grand Theft Auto III. That game came out on the PlayStation 2 in 2001, credited in Edge to “Rockstar/DMA”.
The name changed in 2002. Wikipedia says DMA Design became Rockstar Studios in March of that year and Rockstar North in May. The period press followed: in May 2002 Edge wrote of “DMA (now Rockstar)”, and by October IGN Unplugged was writing of “Rockstar North (formerly known as DMA Design)”.
Vice City, Manhunt and San Andreas
Vice City (2002) moved the series to a city modelled on 1980s Miami, all neon, big hair and print shirts. IGN Unplugged saw it before release and noted that, “for the first time in the series”, players could walk inside buildings. Edge gave it eight out of ten. It liked the new lead character, voiced by Ray Liotta, and the properties the player could buy, but found cracks in the city: crash bugs, characters who walked through each other, and a police car that stopped next to a gunfight only because the lights were red.
Manhunt (2003) was a different kind of game: a violent stealth game for the PlayStation 2, in which, as Edge described it, the longer the player waited before attacking an unsuspecting victim, the more violent the cut-scene that followed. It carried an 18 certificate in Britain. In July 2004, after the parents of a murdered Leicester teenager blamed the game for influencing his killer, the retailers Dixons and Game took it off their shelves. The British Board of Film Classification stood by its rating.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas followed on the PlayStation 2 on 29 October 2004, with a PC version the next year. Edge noted how far the player’s character could now be customised, from the car’s wheels and paint to a trip to the barber.
GTA IV, Red Dead and GTA V
Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) brought the series to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and returned it to Liberty City. Grand Theft Auto V (2013) had three playable characters and an online mode, GTA Online, that Rockstar has kept adding to ever since. Take-Two reported in August 2026 that GTA V had sold more than 230 million copies across three generations of consoles, and the series as a whole nearly 475 million.
Rockstar’s studios increasingly shared their games. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) was developed by all of Rockstar’s studios together, Rockstar North among them. In 2020 Rockstar bought the Dundee developer Ruffian Games, which had broken away from Realtime Worlds, and renamed it Rockstar Dundee, which brought the company back to the city where DMA had started.
Leslie Benzies
Leslie Benzies, Rockstar North’s president, left the company in 2016. In April 2016 he sued Rockstar and Take-Two, claiming more than $150 million in unpaid royalties. Take-Two’s annual report for the year to March 2019 records that the case ended that year in a confidential settlement.
Grand Theft Auto VI and the dismissals
Grand Theft Auto VI was first due in 2025. Rockstar delayed it twice, first to May 2026, and in November 2025 announced a release date of 19 November 2026 on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
In autumn 2025 Rockstar dismissed 31 staff in Britain, many of them at Rockstar North, all members of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain. Rockstar said they had leaked confidential information in a Discord channel that people outside the company could see. The union said they had been sacked for organising, in a private union channel. In January 2026 an employment tribunal in Glasgow refused the dismissed workers interim relief; the full claim was still to be heard.
Sources
- Edge issue 105, Christmas 2001: the move to Edinburgh, the loss of staff and RenderWare.
- PC Zone issue 83, December 1999: Take-Two buys DMA Design from Infogrames.
- Edge issue 217, August 2010: Ruffian as a “breakaway studio” from Realtime Worlds.
- Edge issue 106, January 2002: Grand Theft Auto III credited to “Rockstar/DMA”.
- Edge issue 110, May 2002: “DMA (now Rockstar)”.
- IGN Unplugged issue 17, October 2002: Vice City preview (“Rockstar North (formerly known as DMA Design)”; neon, big hair and print shirts; going indoors).
- Edge issue 118, Christmas 2002, pp. 87–88: Vice City review (eight out of ten; developer “In-house (Rockstar North)”).
- Edge issue 132, January 2004: Manhunt review (developer Rockstar North; the delayed attack and the cut-scenes).
- Edge issue 142, November 2004: San Andreas (developer “In-house (Rockstar North)”; PS2 release 29 October, PC 2005; vehicle upgrades and the barber).
- “Violent video game pulled from shelves”, NBC News (Associated Press), 29 July 2004, and “Dixons pulls Manhunt”, The Register, 29 July 2004: Dixons and Game withdraw Manhunt; the BBFC’s rating (web, secondary).
- “Former Rockstar boss Leslie Benzies sues Rockstar for $150 million”, PC Gamer, April 2016, and Game Informer, 12 April 2016: the lawsuit (web, secondary).
- Take-Two Interactive, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2019: the confidential settlement.
- “Ruffian Games is now Rockstar Dundee”, Game Informer, 12 October 2020 (web, secondary).
- Rockstar Games, statement on X, November 2025: Grand Theft Auto VI release date of 19 November 2026; “GTA 6 release date and time, delay, trailers, and latest news”, PCGamesN: the earlier 2025 and May 2026 dates (web, secondary).
- “GTA V surpasses 230 million sales months before GTA VI touches down”, Game Developer, 7 August 2026: Take-Two’s sales figures (web, secondary).
- The Scottish Games Network, 18 November 2025, and “Fired Rockstar union workers denied interim relief”, Game Developer, 13 January 2026: the dismissals, both sides’ accounts and the tribunal ruling (web, secondary).
- “Rockstar North”, Wikipedia: the 2002 renaming; Red Dead Redemption 2 developed across Rockstar’s studios (web, secondary).
- “Grand Theft Auto”, Wikipedia: GTA IV (2008) and GTA V (2013), their settings, platforms and GTA Online (web, secondary).