Rockstar is opening its doors to Girls Game Lab to help aspiring young girls make games

(Image credit: Rockstar)

Rockstar Games is partnering with Girls Game Lab, an organization committed to teaching young girls the skills to make their own video games. On February 22, Girls Game Lab will do what few are ever allowed to do: step inside a Rockstar studio. Its participants will meet developers and go hands-on inside the Edinburgh-based studio responsible for some of the industry’s most successful games of all-time. The workshop will be entirely free and Girls Game Lab is now accepting sign-ups. The event will run from 11:30 am to 4 pm local time in Edinburgh.

As with all Girls Game Lab workshops, the event is intended for girls aged 8-12. During the free workshop, Girls Game Lab says activities will include designing plot and characters, working with and creating assets, programming using the free Stencyl app, designing levels and mechanics, and learning basic animations. The event will also showcase games made by local game devs and be hosted by developers who worked on Red Dead Redemption 2.

It’s a rare move for Rockstar to open its doors to anyone. Preferring to work in secret about as much as humanly possible, the company’s momentary lapse in covert operations is a touching one. Previous Girls Game Lab workshops have taken place at Playground Games, the creators of the Forza Horizon series, as well as No More Robots, a UK-based indie publishing label which has released games such as the downhill biking sim Descenders and the Papers, Please-inspired Not Tonight.

It seems Rockstar is staying busy, as they’re also working on what looks like GTA 6.

Freelance Journalist

Mark Delaney is a prolific copywriter and journalist. Having contributed to publications like GamesRadar+ and Official Xbox Magazine, writing news, features, reviews, and guides, he has since turned his eye to other adventures in the industry. In 2019, Mark became OpenCritic's first in-house staff writer, and in 2021 he became the guides editor over at GameSpot. 

Latest in Red Dead
Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden says 100-hour games are a "mismatch" to today's reality: "I haven't even opened Red Dead Redemption 2, because I don't have 90 hours"
Red Dead Redemption 2 screenshot showing the silhouette of a man with a cowboy hat on horseback, a glowing sun seen behind him
Red Dead Redemption 2's very own Arthur Morgan says he wishes that he could work with "genius" Metal Gear mastermind Hideo Kojima
Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 modder makes "all wagons and horses travel at super sonic speeds," chaos and jumpscares ensue: "It's now a horror game"
Red Dead Redemption
Red Dead Redemption 2 dev reveals detail "99% of people never saw" that's part of "what makes Rockstar's games so good"
Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar veteran says Red Dead Redemption's PS3 version was "very hard and time-consuming" to make, but it was "easy to write for the 360"
Red Dead Redemption
After 14 years, the original Red Dead Redemption finally hits PC this month, with Undead Nightmare in two
Latest in News
A screenshot from MindsEye showing a character leaning out of a car, shooting another car with a gun.
GTA veteran says the games industry needs to "get smarter" about what people actually want: "There are so many games, and I think we're starting to feel the effects"
Posing with a rifle in the Fallout 76 Ghoul update
Fallout 76's art director "had to fight really hard" so Bethesda would make the MMO's map bigger than Skyrim's
Minecraft movie image of Jack Black as steve
Don't expect Minecraft to go free-to-play anytime soon, as Mojang says "It doesn't really work with the way we built it"
Yasuke looking over the water to a shrine during sunset in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Assassin's Creed Shadows has an entire island stuffed with adorable kittens you need to check out, and it's based on an actual Japanese cat paradise
phase zero key art showing zombies in a hallway
Former Witcher 3 and Dying Light devs reveal their Resident Evil homage, complete with PS1-style fixed cameras
Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System was only created because WB Games wanted something to combat Batman Arkham Asylum's second-hand sales, exec says