Following its Grand Theft Auto 6 Extended Look on Netflix, Rockstar Games has spoken about the size of the upcoming title’s in-game map. In an interview with IGN, Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson brought up direct comparisons between the worlds of Grand Theft Auto 6 and Red Dead Redemption 2 when it comes to complexity.
“There is a whole other world in Red Dead Redemption 2, yes. GTA 6 is very much like that. There’s a whole lot of stuff that you discover emergently that we’re not necessarily directing you to through objectives or blips or icons on a map as well. If you take a bit of time and explore, you will be rewarded – a lot. It’s a big map, a very big map.”
Nelson went on to discuss how the horsepower of current-generation consoles went a long way in allowing the development team to realize its ambitions in creating an open-world game where the world itself felt alive. While much of this was already achieved with Red Dead Redemption 2, he explained that the team could only push it further with current-gen hardware. It is worth keeping in mind that the Extended Look used footage of Grand Theft Auto 6 running on a base PS5.
“I think with Red Dead Redemption 2, we finally had the team and the tech and then took the time we needed to push the idea of making a fully realized, consistent-feeling world further than we ever had. With that game, we took the time necessary to take advantage of that generation of hardware to maximize the quality of our open world population, design, and gameplay so that when you were riding from here to there in-game, you were constantly getting distracted and pulled in different directions. And then you could really get lost as that character in that place. That’s when, to me, these games can feel magical and create a sense of wonder that the world is alive – and you get these little shivers of ‘What’s happening?’
“GTA 6 is a continuation of our team pushing in this direction – doing everything we possibly can to create the largest, deepest, most densely populated and complex world we have ever built for people to get lost in.”
Aside from the world itself, Nelson also praised the current-gen console hardware for allowing Rockstar Games to bring in a larger variety of NPCs all over the game. This includes NPCs of differing heights and body shapes, with each one having animation sets that are appropriately suited for their body types.
“One of the coolest things about this game being developed from the ground up on this generation of hardware is taking advantage of all the memory that we have on the latest consoles combined with our teams’ experience doing this for so long together.
“NPCs have more height differentiation and body shape differentiation than ever before; we could never have had this variety before because different body types had to share animation sets. So, if you had the same animation on the 5’6” person and the 6’2” person, they wouldn’t line up if they’re fighting or sitting in cars—basically any interactions with each other or the environment. But on this game, the team worked out a system where they now retarget those animations on the fly. Now we have a huge variety of heights and shapes, and it all works together because of what this team was able to pull off.”
Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19th. For more on the game, check out our coverage of the Extended Look.
