The Grand Theft Auto franchise has been quite well known for allowing players to experience incredible levels of freedom thanks to their sandboxes, and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 won’t be any different. Rockstar North co-studio head and head of development Rob Nelson spoke about how the title will let players forget they’re playing a game thanks to the depth of its world and gameplay systems.
In an interview with TGG, Nelson spoke about how the various interconnected systems across Grand Theft Auto 6 will come together in a way that makes players forget that they’re simply playing a game, and will encourage them to instead roleplay living in Vice City and Leonida County.
“The way the whole thing works together, we’ve got a lot of very complicated systems working in an interconnected way; you can forget it’s a game that has been designed to try and work this way. I think it allows you to sort of role play as heavily or as lightly as you want to.”
Grand Theft Auto 6’s emphasis on player choice will also give players a variety of ways they can approach any situation. This even extends to the more violent aspects of the game, since players will be free to cause as much or as little mayhem as they want.
“The idea is that you have a fair amount of choice now in terms of the way you can approach situations. You can still cause as much carnage as you can imagine. How does that make you feel if it has an impact on certain things? Do you still want to do it? Do you want to do it more? Do you want to do it less? Do you care at all? It’s up to you and what matters to you.”
It is worth keeping in mind that, historically, Rockstar’s games have promoted quite a bit of freedom in their open-world titles since the 2001 release of Grand Theft Auto 3. When it comes to missions, however, the studio has typically stuck to offering on-rails, linear missions that might even punish players for thinking outside the box. This could be seen with Red Dead Redemption 2’s mission structure, which placed a larger emphasis on cinematic scenarios than it did on player freedom outside of its sandbox.
Things might be different with Grand Theft Auto 6; Nelson’s statement indicates that this level of freedom might even apply to how players approach the title’s missions. However, just how much agency the player has in the story remains to be seen.
As we get closer to the November 19th release of Grand Theft Auto 6 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, Netflix recently confirmed that the title’s Extended Look showcase, which was a timed exclusive on the streaming platform, managed to get 31.1 million views, and in the process, topped Netflix’s English film charts across 87 of the 93 countries where these metrics are tracked.
Rumors have also indicated that the title will run at 30 FPS on the consoles, with a 60 FPS mode not yet having been confirmed.
