The number of people working Grand Theft Auto V lead developer Rockstar North pretty much doubled between 2017 and 2018.

That's according to the development icon's filing for the financial year ending March 31st, 2018 - made public on January 2nd, 2019 on the UK's Companies House - in which Rockstar North said that it had an average of 1,063 people on staff each month for the 2018 fiscal year. 12 months before, this figure was 515.

Of that 1,063, 1,013 were development staff, while 50 were admin; in 2017, these stood at 488 and 27 respectively.

As a result, its total outlay for wages and salaries also rose significantly, from £19.7m to £34m. Adding on social security, pension and equity shares, Rockstar North was paying out £57.4m - almost double the 2017 financial year's £31.6m.

That pegs the average salary at Rockstar North at £32.014; for the 12 months ending March 31st, 2017, that figure stood at £38,279.

In its SEC 10-K filing for the 12 months ending March 31st, 2019, Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive said it had 3,784 employees working in game development. That's not that huge an increase on the year before, when the publishing giant had 3,533 developers on staff, but that was a sizeable rise on the 2,818 it employed during the 2016/17 financial year.

All of which is to say that it looks like Take-Two was staffing up during the 12 months ending March 31st, 2017, potentially developers to help finish off Red Dead Redemption 2 - lead by Rockstar's San Diego studio - but given Rockstar North's increased headcount during this time, it's possible that the Edinburgh-based studio was starting pre-production on a new project.