Rockstar Games has spent years building the massive open world of its upcoming "Grand Theft Auto VI," but the developers have also been given considerable freedom to add details they personally find interesting. The game has grown so vast that even senior staff cannot keep track of everything in it, raising the question of just how many unannounced interactions are hidden across Vice City.
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier recently shared behind-the-scenes details from his visit to Rockstar North’s studio in Scotland. He explained that individual teams are free to flesh out the game’s streets, residents and environments, rather than having every element dictated by management.
During the interview, Schreier quoted Rockstar head of development Aaron Garbut, who said, "There’s no one person that has this whole thing in their head."
Schreier added that with Vice City and its enormous population of non-player characters, even senior developers may not know every detail included in the game. Giving separate teams control over individual sections of a huge open world is not unusual, but the scale and lengthy development of "GTA 6" could leave players discovering new things years after its release. Many of those touches did not come from a checklist handed down by management, but from ideas conceived by smaller teams and individual developers.
This approach is nothing new for Rockstar Games. Garbut pointed to "Red Dead Redemption 2," where the horses’ testicles famously shrink in cold weather. He revealed that the detail was never included on an official development checklist, nor was any team specifically instructed to spend time creating it. One employee simply had the time and resources to bring the idea to life.
That seemingly minor touch became one of the best-known examples of "Red Dead Redemption 2’s" commitment to environmental realism. Rockstar’s practice of giving developers room to experiment and fill its worlds with unexpected details has now carried over to "GTA 6."
Not every experiment survives development, however. Schreier revealed that Rockstar Games once considered abandoning the franchise’s familiar weapon wheel for "GTA 6." The team worried that such an overtly game-like interface would draw attention to the weapons characters could not realistically carry, prompting developers to test alternatives including trays and web-like layouts. After months, and possibly years, of experimentation, Rockstar ultimately returned to the traditional design.
Schreier also said the team struggled between 2019 and 2022 to balance the realistic systems of "Red Dead Redemption 2" with the more arcade-style gameplay of "Grand Theft Auto." Some developers felt the project was going nowhere, and several designers left the company. A clearer direction finally began to emerge in early 2023. Some artists, meanwhile, had been working on "GTA 6" since 2015 and traveled to Miami for research.
via： Bloomberg