GTA 6 story was rejected three times leading to a Rockstar founder leaving

Grand Theft Auto 6's story was reportedly rejected three times, causing its development to be prolonged longer than intended.

According to Fravilys and a penned Medium article, there were three different versions of the GTA 6 script that were rejected by GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive, with the first pitch being a "detective story, worthy of a thriller, and centered around three protagonists." This script was in development at Rockstar until 2016, when Take-Two vetoed the idea and said it was "Too dark and did not meet their expectations." Story two featured two protagonists, a policewoman and a "Drug smuggler's underling, a crazy Trevor from GTA V."

This idea was in development at the studio for approximately 18 months before it was also canceled by Take-Two. The third pitch was a fork off the second idea, with the grieving policewoman being replaced by an African-American man, a former soldier, released from prison, and falling into the criminal underworld. This idea was canned in March 2019, and was promptly followed by Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games, stepping down from his position as Vice President of Creative and relinquishing his duties from the studio.

Notably, Fravilys isn't a proven source, so take the above information with a healthy amount of skepticism. As Insider Gaming reports, while Fravilys' information is unproven, if true it does explain the lengthy development time of GTA 6, and Rockstar's codename for GTA 6 "Project Americas" alluding to having multiple protagonists and the inclusion of a Latina woman, which turned out to be the now confirmed Lucia we see in the trailers.