Following recent leaks of Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay footage before the title got its Extended Look video, IO Interactive’s AI programmer, Berkay Dursun, has spoken about the upcoming open-world game on social media. Commenting on some of the leaked gameplay footage that brought up comparisons with the NPC crowds in older Hitman games, Dursun said GTA 6 indicated that Rockstar is at least a decade ahead of the rest of the industry.
Dursun pointed out that, while Hitman games have traditionally had incredibly dense crowds even going as far back as 2006’s Hitman: Blood Money, the crowds in GTA 6 are a lot more complex.
“As someone who worked for 3 years directly at IO on this crowd technology, I can say that this crowd technology has no relation to the technology in GTA 6. In GTA, every character is simulated individually, and achieving simulations on this scale puts them at least 10 years ahead of the industry. The closest game that does simulation at this level might be Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord, and yes, I worked on that game too lol,” he wrote, according to machine translation.
In further posts, Dursun elaborated that crowds in dense games like Hitman and Assassin’s Creed typically aren’t true NPCs. They are, for lack of a better technical word, “Crowds” that have no AI behind them. They are simply programmed to follow certain patterns. NPCs that have AI behind them would be more complex and reactive to players’ actions.
“The characters you see here or in the environment in Assassin’s Creed, etc., aren’t NPCs; they’re Crowd. There’s no AI behind them; they just do “extra” roles in a certain pattern. An NPC has AI behind it and reacts to the player, has its own behavior patterns, etc., and those are costly operations for a large number of NPCs.”
Interestingly, Dursun also noted that, while he can’t reveal the exact number of “real NPCs” in IO Interactive’s latest title – 007 First Light – the Bond game “can’t even come close to GTA 6.” Bringing up Bannerlord again, he said that First Light’s NPCs “can’t even be a quarter” of the medieval RPG.
Rockstar Games recently showcased quite a bit of gameplay from Grand Theft Auto 6. In its Extended Look video, the studio showed off a few of the in-game missions, and even some open-world gameplay. The title is slated to feature many new gameplay systems, including more challenging driving, navigation, and even stealing.
When it comes to monitoring the crimes committed by players, Grand Theft Auto 6 will use a system dubbed Criminal Profiles. The system has been described as being quite advanced, and is slated to be smart enough to understand the context behind player actions. While the game will undoubtedly encourage criminal behavior throughout its story, it will also be up to players whether they want to push things further with their arsenal or even de-escalate situations.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19th. For more, check out what the studio has said about the size and complexity of the in-game world.
