GTA 6 Lets You “Rob Pretty Much Anything,” Rockstar’s Rob Nelson Says

In Grand Theft Auto VI, robberies are not saved for a handful of big story moments, according to Rockstar. “You can rob pretty much anything,” Rob Nelson, head of development at Rockstar North, said in an interview with IGN, before picking a shop that sells headphones as his example.

Insider Gaming reported the comments on October 7, 2026, from IGN’s full interview. The conversation took place in July while Nelson played about 30 minutes of the game, and IGN covered much of that demo in an August preview, according to GTAVice.

Money between missions

Nelson described robbery targets as a way to earn money and called them “very important to the gameplay system loop,” according to Insider Gaming. Players can rob places as Jason and Lucia together or with one character alone.

Discussing GTA 6’s earlier Extended Look, he said a short sequence of robberies in that video represents “a HUGE amount of what you can and need to be doing in this game in between story missions,” GTAVice reported.

He also named the kinds of places he had in mind. During the demo, he said, he had planned to go to “a shop, or a bank, or payday loan place and try to rob it.”

Instead, Jason pointed out a police impound lot as they drove past, and the plan changed. GTAVice said the lot held a car the pair had already been asked to steal.

Inside one robbery

At one point, Nelson said he should prepare by parking a getaway vehicle outside, but skipped that step to see what would happen, according to GTAVice. Inside a store, he found a safe and searched for its combination.

He was carrying an explosive that could have opened the safe instead, but it would have damaged some of the valuables inside. Police then gathered outside, and Nelson escaped through a rear exit.

That was one demo run, not a rule for how every robbery plays out.

What is still unclear

“Pretty much anything” does not establish that every building, business or character can be robbed. The reports cited here do not provide a complete target list or establish whether banks can be robbed at any point in the story.

Robberies are also not new to GTA 6 coverage. The Extended Look showed Jason and Lucia carrying out robberies, and earlier unofficial robbery footage from a leak showed Jason holding up gas stations. GTA 5’s story mode also allowed convenience-store robberies outside missions, while its major heists were structured story missions.

Nelson’s comments provide more detail about the role of robberies: Rockstar describes them as an important way to earn money between story missions.

Featured image: File photo of Rockstar North’s headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland, in October 2023. Photo: Discott / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)