The whole world is going feral as Grand Theft Auto 6’s November release date approaches, desperate for even the tiniest of details. Meanwhile Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, is a man who has had to keep all those details secret for a very long time.
Finally, when I sat down in his office in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh for an exclusive IGN interview, he was able to spill some of those GTA 6 secrets for the very first time.
“I think the challenge for us on this game is the same as it is on any new game for us,” says Nelson. “How do we evolve and build upon the good things we have done before in all the ways these things need to evolve, but at the same time ensure that the game still has everything that made the previous games in this series resonate with people?”
The answer seems to be, for a large (if not the most) part, in creating a whole world that players can spend meaningful time in, engaging in fulfilling activities that go beyond simply grinding sidequests for cash or trying to boost stats to power through the main story. The setting of Leonida is begging to be explored and experienced by the player.
“The game is so big, I don’t know that there’s anybody on the team that knows all of it,” he says.
Making friends (or not) in Leonida
As we’re talking, Nelson is multitasking, playing through a slice of Grand Theft Auto 6 that will go on to perfectly exemplify his point. It’s dense with NPCs, traffic weaving through the streets, and opportunities for mayhem at every turn. And those people on the sidewalks? They’re ready to cause all sorts of chaos.
“While we pushed interaction with NPCs as far as we could for Red Dead Redemption 2, with this game we are taking it much further,” he explains. “The team has done an incredible job to create all of this crazy dialogue, and you can stand there and listen to them, but we’ve tried to find a balance where if you stand too close to a group, they should notice that you’re eavesdropping.”
“So, if you stand there and try to listen to the whole thing, they’ll often turn around, notice you and go, ‘Oh hey, can I help you?’ Or if you follow people for too long and too close so that they can hear you, they’ll go, ‘Oh, hey.’ Then they may be aggressive, or they may just want to get away from you. When we first started these ideas back on Red Dead Redemption 2, we thought if we could get it working there in a more sparsely populated world, we imagined what it might feel like at scale in a modern world. So it was one of the scary but very worthwhile and fun challenges we took on with this game.”
According to Nelson, an epic amount of time, research and work went into populating the world, styling the NPCs so that every area of the world feels distinct. Rockstar even had a team in LA solely dedicated to NPC dialogue, which is how you end up with GTA gems like “you can use my balls like a punching bag” and “I can pee on you if you pay me.”
The evolution of the world’s NPCs extend beyond banter, clothing, and mugging them for $5. It’s one of the places where it’s clear that the development of Red Dead Redemption 2 has had a significant influence on GTA 6.
“This NPC interaction system is one that is returning and evolved from Red Dead Redemption 2,” says Nelson. “In the past, we’ve had systems where you can speak to NPCs, in Red Dead Redemption 1 and GTA 5 there were basic systems for interacting, but the interactions were very simple. But with Red Dead Redemption 2, we were finally able to incorporate the ability to interact with NPCs as a more fleshed-out system.”
He specifically references the use of the left trigger, something that was once a binary system, and how the team had to adapt to allow for the more nuanced approach of using the trigger as a way to interact with the world without pulling out a weapon. That same system and the expertise around it have made their way into GTA 6.
“We have to do so much work in design, in code behaviors, in animation, in writing, to get these
interactions to feel believable,” he says. “Now, everybody across all of these teams – across technical teams, animation teams, across design teams, across writing teams – need to in a way become students of human behavior. You find yourself watching how people behave out in the world and studying the rise and fall of a conversation as you pass two people.”
Criminology, GTA style
That detail and the specificity it allows for is supported by the new Criminal Profile system, a spiritual successor to Red Dead Redemption 2’s Honor system. While it does dynamically alter based on activities that could be broadly considered “good” or “bad”, your profile is not there to encourage you to be a perfect citizen. This is a game about how much fun it can be to break the law, after all, but it’s up to you how maliciously violent you want to be about it.
“As much as possible, we tried to design the game so that you have options,” Nelson explains. “Things can escalate quite quickly if you want them to, or people who don’t want to escalate can try to avoid it. It’s not always possible. To me that supports the narrative.
“This is a story about a couple on the run. We have tried to make the systems and the design support our narrative when and wherever possible. Meaning, if you hit and run, commit a crime and run, get into trouble and move on before the cops get there, and you don’t start shooting people, don’t start escalating – which you absolutely can do if you want to – but if you don’t, you’re generally going to be fine.”
Nelson says the team began to experiment with the idea that you’re not the only dangerous person in the world in Red Dead Redemption 2. In its lawless frontier you could be attacked by roving gangs, or start fights with people on the trails. GTA 6 builds new layers into those choices.
“So, if you’re doing things on mission that you are required to do – or you’re robbing places, or somebody comes and messes with you and you have to deal with them by smacking them down or whatever – that’s all fair game,” Nelson explains. “It’s when you go beyond what is necessary on a consistent basis, or you do completely unnecessary stuff consistently, that you may start to sway your criminal profile in a certain direction.”
“Maybe you care about that as a player, maybe you don’t. There is no right or wrong way to play this. To us, it’s a very interesting concept. In previous games, you’re quite overpowered in the world compared to everyone else apart from the cops, which can be fun, but not as fun, I don’t think, as having a world where there may be other people that have impulses of their own and act upon you. You are still powerful and capable, but you are not the only one capable of violence or the only one with weapons or the only crazy person out there. It makes the world far more unpredictable and interesting.”
Wanted and Busted
This new system exists alongside the iconic Wanted levels and risk of getting Busted. Again, further complexity has been added to these systems, but the same thrills of evading police helicopters, fleeing mayhem in sports cars, and getting into deeper and deeper trouble at every turn are still alive and well.
“The Wanted system in GTA 6 requires that someone witness the crime, or an alarm needs to be set off for it to be reported to the law,” explains Nelson. “One star is not going to be too difficult to get away from. You can see with these little icons on-screen, the police know what we’re driving, so we should just jump out of the vehicle. They also know we’re a couple. You could split up, and that will also help lower the police’s perception of you.”
The same goes for swapping to a different vehicle during a chase or even just changing clothes and pulling on a baseball cap. The key to getting away won’t always be a fast car, though; the busy roads of the more built-up areas of Leonida mean sometimes fleeing on foot will be the way to go.
“We put a lot of work into how you can navigate the world, trying to make everything as smooth as possible to really encourage this type of gameplay where you are running and getting out of the car, jumping and climbing fences. If you get three stars in the city, it can sometimes be challenging to get away in a vehicle, unless it’s a very fast vehicle or a sports bike. Your best option is usually to do this—get off the streets and get on foot into the alleys.”
You got a fast car…
One of the many ways to stir up trouble is the titular grand theft auto, and that’s still a major part of the action. The gameplay we saw included breaking into a police impound lot in search of a particular sports car a quest-giver had requested. As a higher-value vehicle, it also allowed Nelson to explain some of the changes Rockstar has made to the process of boosting cars.
“We have put some layers of stratification into the vehicles,” he says. “Previously, you could just press triangle to automatically hotwire and steal any vehicle that you wanted and take off. We felt like that left a lot of potential gameplay on the table in terms of progression and decision-making for players,” he said. “So now, you start off the game and there are certain parked cars that are not accessible to you until you get a bit further along with the story and you acquire certain tools to get into them, but you can always carjack any driver you see.”
“We also now have this scanner as a part of the phone,” says Nelson. From the brief glimpse we caught of it in the gameplay demo, it appears to be an app called, delightfully, Waink. Scanning a car with Waink will spit out a number of facts. “For example, it tells me this car is locked, it’s got an alarm, and has no tracker. It also tells me how much it’s worth if I go to take it to a Pay n’ Spray or a specialty car fence, and how much it would cost for me to register it for myself. So, for example, this car needs a key cloner. This other car will just need a Slim Jim. So we’ve added a lot of fun little tools you need or mechanics you need to perform these formerly binary actions.”
Multiple choice
Ultimately, it all comes down to choice. Rockstar has created a romance, a story, and a rich and immersive world, but what you do with them is up to you.
“We are always trying to find that balance between freedom and storytelling,” explains Nelson. “It is a challenge, and sometimes when you are trying to create a specific or hopefully compelling narrative, the narrative aspect does need to take precedence at times – at least for us it does. To move the narrative forward in a believable way, you have to hit these beats, and so in those cases we have to kind of guide the experience. But with this game we have made a very conscious effort to open things up where possible – without compromising the quality of the experience.”
Of course, that means things won’t always go to plan, whether you’re a player firing up the game in November or Nelson himself, getting Wasted because a car sideswiped him while he was trying to escape the cops.
“We are very excited about some of what we have going on now in the open world, with how it reacts to you and the systems we have working together. We have a lot of emergent natural-feeling stuff happening pretty often now as you roam around the world. That was truly emergent for me, when we drove past that car park and Jason suggested we do that job – I hadn’t actually heard that dialogue from him myself yet. And it worked – I was going to a pawn shop, then Jason said, ‘Should we go do this?’ as we drove by, and I changed my mind.
“And one of the coolest things in GTA 6 is how much fun it can be to be with your partner,” Nelson continues. “You’ll have seen it in the [Extended Look video], and it will be interesting to see if people pick up on it. Because, yes, the video showcases three pretty action-heavy missions intercut with loads of other things you can do, but in just one little sequence we show a couple of robberies, which represents a huge amount of what you can and need to be doing in this game in between story missions.”
Heart beats
That’s the other big change for GTA 6. You’ve been able to swap between multiple protagonists in a GTA game before, but this time around you can swap between Jason and Lucia, and nurture their relationship as its own specific unit.
“There is a system that tracks what sort of criminal you are. And then there is also a relationship system,” explains Nelson. “They’re separate. You manage the relationship in the way you hopefully nurture any relationship – which is by spending time together. So being in the open world and exploring together or doing activities together, playing pool or mini golf or kayaking; normal slice of life things. Or, robbing stores together, robbing banks together. However players want to spend that time together, it will have a positive impact on the relationship.”
When you’re out in the world solo, you can stay in touch with your partner over text, checking in to say goodnight or asking them to come and meet you. The way Nelson describes it, there’s all the drama you expect from a Grand Theft Auto story, but with a very authentic relationship at the heart of it.
“With the relationship, we start Jason and Lucia off wanting to give it a shot, but just going through the story and playing missions together may not be enough to keep them together,” Nelson warns. “You’ll have to keep them together by spending a bit of time together in the open world, and then hopefully that will reinforce your connection to them and increase your investment in their story.” said Nelson.
While Jason and Lucia’s relationship extends out of the story and into GTA’s mechanical systems, he also pointed out that you can decide not to work on your relationship without negatively affecting the experience.
“The narrative is structured in such a way that the circumstances they find themselves in require them to stay together for most of the story and work together. At the very least they will get through most things as partners in crime,” Nelson explains. “I don’t want to say too much more about this because I don’t want to spoil anything. It really adds a compelling element to things and it’s one of the reasons we wanted to approach this sort of story, because it’s completely different for us. Could we bring some sort of emotional resonance to GTA for people if they wanted to engage with it? Could we also provide mechanisms for people to just opt out of it if they’re not into it? If they feel like ‘I don’t want a relationship in this?’ That’s what we’re going to find out. It’s not something that we want to foist upon players.”
And while you’ll almost certainly be drawn to one character or another – I love Lucia’s badass personality, but perhaps you’ll be more drawn to Jason’s golden retriever with a gun energy – Rockstar has made a conscious effort to make sure it wasn’t playing favorites when it came to the characters.
“As the narrative unfolds, we’re quite conscious to try and make sure that players have enough time with each character. After doing GTA 5, we talked about different ideas of – do we do more characters? How do we follow up three characters? Is it four characters now? But we worried about diluting the amount of player time with each and, therefore, player connection with those characters. So we decided to step in this direction of two characters in a relationship.
“But then the question became, ‘How do you make players feel like, ‘I love them both?’ Chemistry is a notoriously hard thing to do in any sort of entertainment. Either the characters and the actors that embody them have it – or they don’t. Everyone involved worked at that pretty hard. I think we’ve got it. I think we’ve got enough reaction within our team internally to where they feel great as individuals and together.”
World, meet GTA 6
I met with Nelson a month before the new ‘Extended Look’ video dropped, which has offered us all the biggest insight into the game so far, so I had to ask what Rockstar is hoping for from fans and how much pressure the team felt after generating so much anticipation for so long.
“I try not to think about it. You’re aware of it, of course. But I think we just have to try and make something that we feel is innovating on what we’ve done previously, evolving it while still making it feel familiar,” he said.
“As much pressure as we feel externally, I don’t think it can compare to the pressure we put on ourselves as a team. Everyone wants things to be perfect. We are nervous! Nervous, of course, but also excited to see how people respond to this video and then ultimately the game. It is definitely a step forward in all respects for us – the size of the world and how deep it feels. It’s a bit of a shock when you get in there and you see the density of the traffic, the density of population, and the fidelity of their responses to you.”
That’s the message I took away from the interview and what I saw. Players are going to be shocked. Shocked, like finding out your pet dog can also predict lottery results. Shocked, like finding out that you’re actually the descendant of a rich guy in Budapest who died and named you in his will. While Nelson says “it’s still very much Grand Theft Auto,” all the additions and tweaks that I saw make it a new benchmark for open world experiences.
“There is a whole other world in Red Dead Redemption 2,” Nelson says, “GTA 6 is very much like that. There’s a whole lot of stuff that you discover emergently that we’re not necessarily directing you to through objectives or blips or icons on a map as well. If you take a bit of time and explore you will be rewarded – a lot.”
Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released on November 19.
Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.
