Hoping GTA 6 will be “wildly different” to GTA 5? Well, a GTA 4 technical director reckons Rockstar will have had a tough time making a big jump
The hype train for GTA 6 is already well and truly chugging along at this point. However, if you’re hoping it’ll offer an experience that’s “wildly different” to GTA 5 in terms of being a huge step forward from a technical standpoint, a long-time Rockstar developer reckons you might want to keep your expectations in check a bit.
In an interview with YouTube channel SanInPlay, Obbe Vermeij, who served as a techincal director at Rockstar from 1995 to 2009, touched on the topic of expectations for this next entry in the series. He offered some interesting perspective as to why he thinks Rockstar may well have faced a big challenge – at least in comparison to previous titles in the series – when it comes to the idea of making a huge leap forwards with GTA 6.
“I don’t think it’s going to be wildly different to GTA 5,” said Vermeij, who worked on GTAs 3 through 4 before leaving the studio in 2009, “I think people might be a little disappointed on the first day, but it’s still gonna be the best game out there.”
Having stressed that he doesn’t have any inside information about GTA 6, Vermeij went on to explain that he believes the unavoidable realities the game’s development will have brushed up against will have made the task of taking a massive step forward from Michael, Franklin and Trevor’s adventure a tough one for Rockstar. “It’s harder to make the same step (as earlier entries) again, because the technology is moving much slower. Like, the difference between PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 was enormous, and [for] PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 it’s not that big, so you don’t really have that technology jump to make things different and better.
“I don’t know, maybe they pulled it off, maybe it’s amazing, but I think some people, their expectations might be a little too high,” the developer added, “The jump from GTA 2 to GTA 3 was big, and from San Andreas to GTA 4 was very big. I don’t think we can ever see a jump like that again.”
That said, Vermeij did note that there were some technical aspects shown off in the game’s first trailer that he is excited about, revealing: “The scene that really blows me away is the one on the beach, where like everybody seems to be doing something else, he said, “Every character has got his own animation. I think that looks pretty amazing.” This seems to be the bit of the trailer that’s really impressed a lot of developers, with former Rockstar animator Mike York having praised it in similar fashion in a reaction to the trailer not long after it came out.
He also gave a thumbs up to the way Rockstar’s gone about trying to capture the vibes of the Florida man, saying: “I think the Miami man theme, where people just do stupid stuff, and the alligators, and sitting on cars and everything, I think that suits GTA very well.”
Vermeij’s views on GTA 6’s potential to make a big leap for the series are made extra interesting by the fact Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said back in May that Rockstar has been striving for perfection and aiming to create “an experience that no one has seen before” with the game.
