GTA V developer stated that a lot of content was cut from the game - Rockstar removed finished levels and mini-games

Sometimes Rockstar Games developers lack the resources to complete almost finished content. The developments are discarded and are not used further.

Rockstar Games is known for developing huge open worlds with a large amount of content, various mini-games, and other gameplay features. However, all this content that players see is the result of a restrained approach to development; not all created materials make it into the release version.

Recently, the KIWI TALKZ YouTube channel presented a new podcast episode. The author interviewed former Rockstar Games producer John Ricchio, who worked on the Red Dead Redemption franchise, Grand Theft Auto, and other projects.

During the conversation, he revealed that a lot of content was cut from Grand Theft Auto V. The developers lacked the resources to bring all the content to the required level of quality, so they had to abandon some, essentially finished, things:

There was so much in GTA V... oh my god, really a ton of things that were ready. For example, mini-games, completely finished... well, almost — only animations were missing. But the animation team was simply overwhelmed with work. Everything had to be brought to one level of quality, and because of that, we had to cut content that was otherwise completely ready. There simply wasn't enough time in the animators' schedule to finish everything.

According to John's colleagues, this is not uncommon for Rockstar Games. He noted that sometimes they had to cut not just mini-games, but entire levels:

And I remember talking to a few people, and they told me: “This happens all the time because the game is huge. GTA is always gigantic.” Sometimes entire levels, entire pieces of the game are cut because there aren't enough resources to bring everything to the right level [of quality]. So these decisions were hard to make, especially when people, designers in particular, had worked on things for a very long time, gone through all the iterations of development, and everyone already liked the end result. And then they are told: “We can't release this. We won't finish it.”

John said that this content was never revisited:

It wasn't like it was later included in DLC or anywhere else. The content just... disappeared. So it was hard for us, but I think it's part of professional work in a large production environment: you don't decide everything yourself, you do your best within the existing constraints and try to find a moment to stop, somehow digest the difficult decision that was made, and then you go back to work and think about how to make the most of the situation.