
Former GTA technical director Obbe Vermeij has revealed that Rockstar was trying to get GTA online play off the ground as far back as GTA 3 in 2001.
GTA Online is a behemoth now with Rockstar making enough cash from 10-year-olds buying Shark Cards that the studio probably didn't even need to make GTA 6. However, it took until GTA 5 for Rockstar to really nail down the online game, with GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption being pretty simple in comparison.