Grand Theft Auto 6 devs Rockstar had a “dark” period of time during the game’s development during 2019-2022, not only because of COVID-19, but also just balancing the realism and the fun, absurd aspects of the game.
GTA 6 takes a lot of systems from Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar’s last big title. These systems also focused a lot on the realism aspects that the game is now known for. But GTA takes it a step further with very photorealistic graphics, advanced wanted-level systems that include investigations, and a whole relationship simulator where you can take your partner on dates, hold their hand, and more.
But something they couldn’t seem to wrap their head around was the weapons wheel system, which we see in many games. Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, told journalist Jason Schrier that they had been looking to change the system to something more realistic and only allowing a certain limit of weapons.
Schrier explained in his YouTube video, “They spent months, if not years, trying a million different things that would replace the weapon wheel. They tried trays and webs and all sorts of different things… After all that, they just wound up back at a weapon wheel, and in the final game, it’s just a weapon wheel again.” However, this was just one of the examples of realism they struggled with.
In the same video, Schrier mentioned that he talked to many GTA 6 developers, some even working more than a decade on the project. He shared that he learned many interesting smaller facts about the game, such as how the roads in the game are a lot narrower than in GTA 5.
Aaron Garbut, the art director for the game, told the journalist that while working on the map, they decided “from the very beginning” to add narrower roads and denser traffic for more realistic depiction of American transport. But this also came with the issue of creating a lot more buildings and construction around the concept.
Apart from the roads, there’s going to be a lot more smaller details added to the game, which, according to Schrier, the other devs on the game may be totally unaware of.
According to Garbut, there is “no one person that has this whole thing in their head”, meaning that the rockstar devs were given a certain level of autonomy to add little details that they thought would fit the world.
Schrier likened this to the horse testicals system in RDR 2, where they shrunk and grew depending on the weather. A system which wasn’t on some features list given by Rockstar but something which a group of devs added themselves.
In other news, GTA 6 pre-orders hit a $600 million pre-order milestone despite imminent threats of the game being leaked and pirated.
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