A Rockstar Games developer who worked on GTA 6 has revealed what it is like to be contributing to the most anticipated game of all time. From how the game has changed to what the feeling is like when the Houser brothers take a look at the game’s state, there are some very interesting reveals coming out of a new interview.
David O’Reilly is an environment artist who worked at Rockstar Games from 2011. He has contributions on the maps for GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA VI. He also has a YouTube channel where he reacts to things such as the GTA 6 trailers and gives his insight. This week, the developer spoke with KIWI TALKZ, a YouTube channel that primarily interviews game developers about their experience in the industry.
The interview covered a wide range of topics on Rockstar Games and the development of their titles such as GTA 6. There are some interesting points that stand out and worth talking about.
Working On GTA 6 For 5 Years
For starters, David explains how developers working at Rockstar don’t really know what is actually in the game. Despite working on GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 for a few years, he doesn’t really know much about the games themselves. The developers, such as artists, are confined to their tasks and not other areas of the game. Departments have their specialist discipline.
Fans have asked David if he knows the plot of the story mode and what Jason and Lucia are up to. In reality, he has “no idea” other than there are two characters despite working on it for 5 years.
GTA 6 Is Ever-changing
Game development is constant in flux. Parts of the game undergo many iterations as their are changes in ideas, approaches and technology. For example, O’Reilly shares how the tools available to developers at the start of a project lack features. This happened in both GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2.
By the end of GTA VI’s development, the team will have a much more extensive toolset to work with compared to when the game began production many years ago.
“In GTA V, we had no height-based blending. No POM shaders, parallax shaders. Right at the end, I was doing R&D on the height maps for the parallax shaders so new features come on. I know we added POM shaders in the PC release. Same with RDR2, we had much better blending techniques towards the end. The same will be definitely true with GTA 6. The tech will have come along massively in the two years I’ve been away.”
The Housers Appear
Sam and Dan Houser co-founded Rockstar and are credited with being the main men behind the game’s story and design plus driving the production on almost every Rockstar Games title. David said he never met the two in charge of running Rockstar and their games however their presence was felt.
“They would pop into the office (Rockstar North, Edinburgh ) every now and again. There would be whispers “ooh, Dan’s here, Dan’s here. Or Dan’s coming or Sam’s coming. There would be a bit of an “Eye Of Sauron effect going on. There would be a flurry of movement.”
The reason why the two brothers would fly over to visit the studio was to view parts of the game and see the progress. On one trip, David’s best friend, who still works at Rockstar, brought the friend along jogging with one of the Houser brothers. Interestingly, the Houser had a 12-14 person entourage with him for the run.
Be sure to watch the full interview with the artist here as it is full of more Rockstar Games and development stories.
KIWI TALKZ has also interviewed other Rockstar Games developers prior to this one and they’ve given us some great insights into how Rockstar works plus what we could see in the future. Most recently, the former Tech Director of the company discussed his predictions for GTA 7’s development which you can learn about here.
Plus, we reported on how another developer revealed the bad parts of Rockstar’s culture back in the day. On top of that, a different developer discussed a canned combat overhaul for GTA V. You can read all about it here.
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