GTA 6 will offer more of an RPG experience than any other game in the series, but Rockstar admits you don't want players to "reject" systems because there are too many of them.
Speaking with Edge, head of development Aaron Garbutt explains, "You can really make the game what you want it to be at the time, whether that's more of a roleplay experience where you're buying cigarettes and beer in the shop and going on the train for the day, or going to a club. You can have your life in the game."
But according to Rob Nelson, another head of development, there's a balance to strike: "You don't want to feel like you're foisting things on the player and then have them reject those things. It's more about trying to let people lean into the way they want to play."
He explains that Rockstar isn't aiming to simply add more and more activities to the player's roster as the game goes on, but to allow them to find their favorites and settle into a rhythm around that.
That even extends to spending a day not behind the wheel of a car, but in the embrace of Vice City's public transit system. Another lead dev, Phil Hooker, says that making sure the buses run on time and to the right place is a personal obsession, so much so that in the middle of playtesting he'll jump on a bus instead of driving to his next location, just to check that they work: "I've memorized all of the routes."
It sounds as though you'll really be able to delve into some deep RPG systems, so much so that you might go for hours without having to engage with the roleplaying systems that drive the game's core mechanics, like the Wanted system. The number of hours that seem like they could be lost to side content is a somewhat daunting prospect, given how substantial the main game is likely to be, but I suppose that, given that people are still out here investing time in GTA 5, perhaps that's no great surprise.
GTA 6 actors get advice from Grand Theft Auto veterans: "Listen to Rockstar" and "get ready".
