Fire services attended the offices of Grand Theft Auto 6 developer Rockstar North this morning and secured "structural damage" following a reported boiler explosion.
UPDATE: Rockstar Games has told IGN that its studio opened today following the incident attended by emergency services in the early hours of this morning.
"Early Monday morning, there was a malfunction in one of the heating boilers at Rockstar North," a Rockstar Games spokesperson confirmed to IGN in a statement. "Many thanks to those that reached out with concern, and also to the police and fire crews who were on scene quickly to assess the situation - please know that everyone is well and our studio remains open and operational."
Earlier reports from emergency service personnel made mention of securing "structural damage" to the building, though Rockstar's statement appears to suggest this was minimal.
ORIGINAL STORY: Fire services attended the offices of Grand Theft Auto 6 developer Rockstar North this morning and secured "structural damage" following a reported boiler explosion.
Seven vehicles were mobilized to attend the main Rockstar North building in Edinburgh, Scotland at 5.02am local time (just after midnight Eastern), following an incident that local news outlet Edinburgh Live described as an "explosion in a boiler room."
Crews remained on-site for over four hours but have now left the scene, Scottish newspaper The Herald has reported.
"We were alerted at 5.02am on Monday, 19 January to attend an incident on Holyrood Road, Edinburgh," a Scottish Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said. "Operations Control mobilised three fire appliances and specialist resources to the scene, where firefighters worked to secure structural damage at a commercial building.
"There were no reported casualties and crews left the scene at 9.21am."
Rockstar Games' Edinburgh office has long served as the heart of the company, with development of every major Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption game taking place within its walls. Most recently, the building has been the site of protests over Rockstar's sudden firing of workers amid an increasingly bitter dispute that the layoffs were due to the employees' union membership — a claim that Rockstar itself has vehemently denied.
It's believed that office remains shut today, though it's too early to say how this setback might impact the release of the twice-delayed GTA 6. Rockstar's hugely-anticipated game is currently set to launch on November 19.
IGN has contacted Rockstar Games for more.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Read the original article
Comments
What a ridiculously sensationalistic headline. It was a minor issue that occurred out of hours and was resolved less than 30 minutes into the working day. Nobody was in any way injured or affected, and it was business as usual.
By snowram 2026-01-1915:16 GTA6 is most likely the most anticipated cultural product of all times. Unfortunately, sensationalization makes perfect sense from news websites perspective.
By baalimago 2026-01-1913:59 Ah, the good old "explode the boiler to lower delivery expectations" trick. Befitting the studio of GTA!
A delay would inconvenience the whole games industry, not just Rockstar; every other developer has to time their release and development around GTA 6.
By embedding-shape 2026-01-1914:001 reply I think most companies at this point learned that no launch date is set in stone. Sure, if you're doing AAA games, you might not want to launch right next to GTA, but for most others? Matters way less than people think.
Tell that to the indie developers that launched games alongside the surprise release of Silksong.
By embedding-shape 2026-01-1914:473 reply > Tell that to the indie developers that launched games alongside the surprise release of Silksong.
Huh? Is your argument that it would be bad for Silksong to surprise release next to GTA? Or that indie developers should have planned around the surprise release of Silksong? I really don't understand what argument you're trying to make here.
By fooqux 2026-01-1915:03 It sounded like you were saying other games launching at the same time yours does matters less than people think.
My argument was that other releases can and do impact sales.
The argument is that Silksong will completely absorb any potential market for you new indie game had during that period. People will be too busy playing another game, leading to poor numbers during launch. It's hard to recover from that.
By embedding-shape 2026-01-1915:22 Right, but what does that have to do with "every other developer has to time their release and development around GTA 6", especially considering that Silksongs release was a surprise, so what exactly could you even plan for?
My original point that there is so many things at play, GTA 6 launch date, which may move, together with other things outside of your control, that "planning your release and development around GTA 6" doesn't make sense, unless you're a big company doing a AAA release.
This implies Silksong was the stronger title, either in gameplay, marketing; or both. If the indie game was better, people would be playing that over Silksong. Isn't this just market forces applied to games?
By walletdrainer 2026-01-1915:511 reply That’s the point. If possible, you don’t want to release your game at the same time as a much stronger title.
I'm saying that's defeatist to your game. Have faith yours is the stronger title
By walletdrainer 2026-01-2219:59 You should also be mindful that there are marketing budgets you can’t outcompete.
Even if your game is better, you’ll probably make much more money if you don’t time it to launch at the same time as the new GTA
The point is that no indie dev was able to plan around the surprise release of Silksong, precisely because it was a surprise.
By embedding-shape 2026-01-1914:581 reply Ah, so then just an agreement with "Matters way less than people think" in the end?
By xmodem 2026-01-1915:33 No.
A lot of devs delayed their launches:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/silksong-release-date-has-...
Those that didn't or couldn't think it hurt them pretty badly:
https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/hell-is-us-boss-slams-silkson...
In general I think you are probably right. But there are definitely exceptions and this is one of them.
By delfinom 2026-01-1916:36 O wow, capitalism in action.
