Enormous Number of Smart NPCs Was One of Reasons for GTA 6 Delay
Bloomberg uncovers the details behind how Rockstar created its most ambitious game.
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While the whole world is waiting for GTA 6 to arrive, you can get a glimpse of its long development in Bloomberg's new article, full of curious details and reports.
Grand Theft Auto 6 has been in development for over 8 years, and Rockstar took it very seriously, going to Miami to feel Vice City vibes, visiting nightclubs, making helicopter shots, and even riding with police to criminal hotspots.
It wasn't always fun: there was a "dark period", according to development lead Rob Nelson, when the vision wasn't clear. The company grew from 2,441 in its Red Dead Redemption 2 era to 4,711, all to make sure the game would be its most ambitious and most detailed project.
By 2022, GTA 6 looked coherent, after years of struggle. "The pattern is very familiar," said Phil Hooker, one of the three heads of development. "You go through a period where things don’t work, but you see snippets."
The game was delayed twice, and the team felt the delays were necessary. The second time Rockstar’s head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe went to Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick to ask for one, just months after the first, he was baffled:
“I think he said, ‘You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding,’” she recalled. “But once we talked through why, he got it. And I think we are really lucky that he is as reasonable as he is, because a lot of people would say, ‘You’d just better figure out how to ship it.’ And we have been really, really lucky that we have not found ourselves in that place, because that happens to a lot of teams, and we’ve all played those games. It’s not great.” Zelnick says that generally it’s “a wise investment in time and financial resources” if a game needs to be delayed to “reach the level of perfection it has the ability to reach.”
Apparently, there were no big, dramatic reasons for the delays, but many pieces didn't quite work as expected. For example, the team just didn't have the production capabilities to set up the enormous number of NPCs, reportedly as clever as ever. In response, the company quickly opened a new office and filled it with developers who'd work on the NPCs.
In spite of the delays, Rockstar was making a game to be proud of: “Despite all the concerns and doubts that plague you at that time thinking, ‘If we stick to our guns on this, we have something really special,’” Hooker shared.
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Bloomberg's report cautiously says that November 19 seems to be the final release date for GTA 6, but you can never be 100% sure until you're actually playing it.
The good news is the PC version will allegedly be out much, much earlier than anticipated: in 2027. If you want to know everything we know about the game, check out this article.
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