Rockstar Games has a reputation as a studio that relies on crunch when developing its games. This aspect of the studio caught a lot of criticism when the working conditions for the development of Red Dead Redemption 2 came to light. However, head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe has said in an interview with Bloomberg that the studio has made a conscious effort to avoid crunching for Grand Theft Auto 6.
Noting that Red Dead Redemption 2 made the team realize that “we’re not doing it like this again” for the next project, Kolbe said that the game’s release was “a real moment for Rockstar to look at itself.” Interestingly, she said that this happened even before reports regarding crunch at the studio first started coming to light. Kolbe went on to say that, “It’s not been perfect, but it’s certainly better than Red Dead 2 was.”
“Anytime I say we haven’t crunched, someone is going to say, ‘I did.’ And I don’t want to get into arguments with individual teams or individual people. But I think we did things differently, and I’m proud of that.”’
The studio being able to develop a game as ambitious as Grand Theft Auto 6 while also making conscious efforts to reduce its reliance on crunch is certainly impressive, especially considering the massive scale of the upcoming title. In a recent interview, vice president of narrative, Rupert Humphries, revealed that the company set up entire teams only dedicated to writing the NPC chatter that one might offhandedly hear while roaming around in the game.
“It’s a team from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life, but we all share a sense of humor and a desire to have a bit of fun with the ridiculousness of humans and the media and advertising. And none of us see it as background! It’s all part of the tapestry of the game and creates the experience of living in this wild world.”
Open-world writing director James Horton further elaborated on this, noting that the company didn’t want to take any shortcuts when it came to the worldbuilding of Grand Theft Auto 6.
“There are no shortcuts when it comes to building a world like this: it’s a question of giving the right people the resources they need to build something that’s not only vast and varied as a whole, but where every part rings true no matter how small it is, or how closely you look at it. It needs to wash over you when you’re sprinting down the busiest street in the city, hearing snatches of a hundred different conversations as you go; and it needs to be totally convincing if you decide to stop and pay close attention to any one of those conversations,” he explained.
Similarly, Rockstar North co-founder Rob Nelson has also confirmed that Rockstar Games has made an effort to offer players more freedom in the missions in Grand Theft Auto 6. This might come as excellent news for fans of Red Dead Redemption 2 who have previously criticized the title’s overreliance on highly-scripted missions.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19th.
