GTA VI 曾计划收录南美部分地区 后被 Rockstar 缩减范围

In a major ‘making-of’ interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Rockstar shared a lot of new information about GTA VI development.

Still releasing on November 19, GTA VI is arguably the most anticipated video game of all time and will end the eight-year-long drought of new GTA titles since GTA V dropped. As a result, any news about the title becomes front-page news, and today new development insights about the next Grand Theft Auto have come to light following a new Bloomberg interview with Rockstar’s development team.

In the interview, Rockstar shared the development team’s views on the Cyberleek debacle and said the company established a whole Los Angeles studio dedicated solely to NPC creation. The development team was also confident enough to boast that the next title won’t take nearly as long as this one did to get off the ground.

First, speaking to Bloomberg, development lead Rob Nelson said that when the team considered the scope of in-game NPCs, it became clear they didn’t have the production capabilities in their current studios to meet the requirements, so they opened a new studio in Los Angeles strictly for NPC creation. Nelson claimed, “The projections they were giving us were horrifying,” and unlike the rest of the industry, Rockstar was in a unique position to throw money at the problem and fix it. The new Los Angeles studio’s main focus was to create NPCs to flesh out GTA VI, making the in-game world feel real and populated.

On top of that, it turns out the GTA VI team initially had designs to include massive swaths of land from North America AND South America. However, they eventually scaled back the scope to focus solely on Miami (or Leonidas) and its surrounding areas. Regardless of whether the South American inclusion happened (it didn’t), GTA VI still boasts the largest GTA map ever created. The developers even offered insight into why the next title in the Grand Theft Auto series won’t take nearly as long to make.

In the same Bloomberg interview, studio heads Phil Hooker and Aaron Garbut said the next title in the series will come out sooner than GTA VI. According to the two heads, Rockstar will retain the technology It developed (along with the team that built it) for the next project, which would significantly reduce development time.

Phil Hooker said, “The engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly,” adding, “I feel confident that we can build on top of this and go more sideways than  upwards to build more compelling content.” Aaron Garbut chimed in with “We foundationally changed a lot of stuff on this project. But now it’s done, and we’re not going to rip it apart.” Rockstar’s studio heads emphasize keeping the team together, and the proof (and development) is in the pudding.

Rockstar is apparently doing the opposite of most other studios. Halo Studios, for example, laid off hundreds after launching Halo Campaign Evolved, then put Halo development under Activision, relegating the former studio to an advisory role. Rockstar proves it in interviews and practice: keeping the band together brings results.

GTA VI launches on November 19, and fans who want to read the full Bloomberg interview can find it here.