The open world has grown significantly in size in recent years, but it seems Rockstar Games has decided to go beyond just expanding the area. exist grand theft auto 6 The studio strives to ensure that players feel the difference between story missions, free exploration, and normal day-to-day activities is as minimal as possible. In other words, the developers want the game’s vast world to be viewed not as a set of separate mechanics and scripted plots, but as a single system that responds to player actions.
Rockstar has repeatedly talked about the size of GTA 6. Vice City should be much larger than Los Santos, and the game area itself, according to circulating information, will be many times larger than the size of the world. Red Dead Redemption 2. But judging from developer comments, the number of square kilometers is far from the most important thing to Rockstar right now. What’s more important is how organically every part of the space works, whether the player is playing through the story or just decides to explore Vice City.
This is one of the main goals of GTA 6. Rockstar wants to abandon the clear distinction between “game” and “world,” where certain opportunities only exist within missions, after which the surrounding reality returns to normal. Phil Hooker, Head of Development rock star gameIn an interview with The New York Times, he explained that the team worked to make gameplay as seamless as possible: Player actions during and outside missions should feel like part of the same system, with no obvious indication of how the game works internally.
This approach explains Rockstar’s focus on small, interactive features. For example, Jason will be able to interact with the environment well beyond immediate tasks: taking food from the refrigerator, eating an apple, buying or drinking a drink with a temporary effect, touching animals, and engaging in physical activity. What’s more, some classes aren’t limited to simple animations—gym workouts require the player’s direct participation.
Lucia will also perform a variety of activities that fit seamlessly into her character’s daily life. She will be able to go shopping, buy groceries, commit robberies, hide on a motorcycle after committing a crime, return home and interact with various objects. These elements may seem small on their own, but they’re the feel of Rockstar’s attempt to establish a full-fledged living world.
Creating such a system represents a serious technical and design challenge for developers. Rob Nelson, one of the people in charge at Rockstar, noted that having a large number of different mechanics working dynamically at the same time became an extremely difficult task. Each new opportunity shouldn’t just exist on its own, but should interact with the game’s other systems without destroying the illusion of a coherent world.
However, Rockstar isn’t abandoning the traditional story mission structure. GTA 6 will still contain large-scale staged plots, missions and events prepared by the developers in advance. The main mission is different – to ensure that the plot is not treated as a separate mode that exists independently of the open world.
This is an especially important question for this type of game. Players can spend hours engaging in side activities, exploring the map, or just moving around the city, completely ignoring the main story. Rockstar doesn’t want to take away this freedom, but tie it more closely to the narrative. Ideally, player actions in the open world should feel like a continuation of events that occurred in history, and the storyline itself should feel like a natural part of life in the vast virtual space.
An example of this approach is the social network in GTA 6. Publications and events that players notice on virtual networks can become starting points for further interactions directly within the game world. As a result, information is no longer just a decorative element of the interface, but has real consequences.
NPCs play an equally important role. Rockstar took great care to ensure that the characters’ actions were believable not just in specially designed scenes. Developers analyze how the same person behaves when normally exploring the world and correct situations where character behavior outside of missions differs too much from what players see in the storyline.
So Rockstar is looking to solve one of the age-old problems with open worlds: environments shouldn’t suddenly turn into scenery after completing another mission. If the developers really succeed in realizing their plans, GTA 6 will differ from many representatives of the genre, not only in the size of the map and the number of activities, but also in the logic of the existence of this world. Players won’t have to constantly switch between “story play” and free mode – Rockstar wants both states to feel like part of a continuous system.