{"id":16503,"date":"2026-09-17T15:22:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/?p=16503"},"modified":"2026-09-18T13:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T13:00:12","slug":"obbe-vermeij-exclusive-rockstars-former-technical-director-on-plans-for-gta-paris-what-the-team-wanted-to-build-with-gta-tokyo-and-reflecting-on-the-25th-anniversary-of-grand-theft-auto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/obbe-vermeij-exclusive-rockstars-former-technical-director-on-plans-for-gta-paris-what-the-team-wanted-to-build-with-gta-tokyo-and-reflecting-on-the-25th-anniversary-of-grand-theft-auto","title":{"rendered":"Obbe Vermeij Exclusive: Rockstar\u2019s former Technical Director on plans for GTA: Paris, what the team wanted to build with GTA: Tokyo, and reflecting on the 25th anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The former Technical Director of the Grand Theft Auto series, Obbe Vermeij, has warned Rockstar to make a video game with GTA VI and not to make the same mistakes that turned Red Dead Redemption II into an experience trying too hard to be a movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Thunderpick following the release of the extended trailer for the next game in the GTA series, Vermeij lifted the lid on the latest developments with his new game, Plentiful, and revealed details on what players could have enjoyed had GTA: Tokyo gone ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also revealed that Paris was another city considered as a future location in the GTA series and looked back on the work he and his team put into the development of Grand Theft Auto III, which was released 25 years ago this October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full interview below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are you enjoying the reaction so far after going into early access with Plentiful? Because the steam reviews are great. The coverage has been great. Yeah, you enjoying it? Are you? I don’t know. What was your expectation, basically?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m enjoying the reaction so far, and I\u2019m really enjoying being part of the indie scene these days. It reminds me of what it was creating games in the 90s when it felt like anything could happen. Games were completely different, and had a real spark of creativity which you don\u2019t when you\u2019re making AAA games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love being part of this indie scene but then again there are so many games coming out now that it\u2019s so hard to stand out, so with Plentiful the way I see it, Early Access can give me some sort of edge, and it\u2019s definitely not going to be an instant success, but it has had some success. It could still go either way but I\u2019m enjoying it. Every time there\u2019s a little video about the game that pops up on YouTube and gets a few thousands views, it gives me a little thrill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could have gone into some sort of corporate job or become a producer at a big studio or something like that but I wouldn\u2019t have enjoyed that because I want to be able to wake up every morning, think of a new feature for my game, and actually implement that idea the same day. That\u2019s not possible when you\u2019re making big games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m happy doing what I\u2019m doing even though it makes absolutely no sense financially, but it\u2019s just a blast. I enjoy other indie games too. I love the fact that you can just fire up a game and after a few minutes you\u2019re exploring some really cool ideas. Look at Meccha Chameleon that came out the other day, a game where you have to hide yourself. It\u2019s such an amazing idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have been the best bits of feedback or reviews you\u2019ve received so far from taking the game into Early Access?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I do listen to every bit of feedback. I\u2019ve made quite a few changes but mainly little things that annoy people, nothing that completely changes the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plentiful is the game as I had envisioned it and I\u2019m quite happy with it. There\u2019s people playing it and it’s a small group but they really, really love it, and they\u2019ve played through it several times. That\u2019s sort of why I did this. I wanted to make a game for people who like the same games that I like. The downside is that it\u2019s very niche and it is a small group of people who will like it and that\u2019s the trick, of course, to reach those people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People have made suggestions and a few people have now said it would be nice to move a bunch of blocks in one go, which does go against the philosophy of my design a little bit, because the whole idea is that you have turns. You have to plan ahead by five turns, nine turns. If you can move a whole bunch of blocks in go then you lose that strategic element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, that would only be for the end game and the free play mode so that\u2019s the sort of thing I\u2019m working on when people ask for it, because you do have to put your pride to one side and cater for people and listen to your players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Plentiful focusing on dynamic terrain sculpting and fluid simulation, are you using any specific mathematical or optimization tricks in your code today that you first invented at Rockstar North 20 years ago?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The one thing that has ended up being surprisingly similar to Grand Theft Auto in my new game is the weather system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It goes through different weather types. I did all the weather systems for GTA III and the whole 3D trilogy, and it ended up just being completely the same, not for any other reason that I made the same choices and again and again, not really thinking about it. Even the way clouds look is similar. On the technical side there are other elements too. The little things like pathfinding, for instance, which is sort of similar to what I did with GTA III too, but there\u2019s not really that much of an overlap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was watching an Italian streamer playing Plentiful and one of his viewers said the game reminded him of this 90s game on the Amiga, and he uploaded a link and realised that it too was one of my games! It was a game I made as a student. He didn\u2019t make the connection because he knew I\u2019d made the two games, it was all down to similarities in the gameplay. I guess I\u2019ve been making the same sort of games all my life, in that case. It just got interrupted by Grand Theft Auto more than anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You said in our previous chat that there is little crossover between GTA players and players interested in Plentiful but have you found that gap closing at all of late?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The people who are interested in playing Plentiful and the people who are interested in Grand Theft Auto are still completely different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re making an indie game, it\u2019s all about the wish lists on Steam, and the majority of that comes from YouTube Shorts and other little videos on TikTok and that has nothing to do with GTA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been a few interviews I\u2019ve done, which have been useful, but I\u2019d say at best 30% of the people wishlisting the game are doing so based on my previous work. The rest come from these video shorts I\u2019m making. I must have made over 150 of them at this point and I just sort of blast them out to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and so on. It\u2019s tedious but it has to be done, and I don\u2019t mind a bit of leg work either. It\u2019s just what it\u2019s like to an indie developer now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the 25th anniversary of the release of GTA3 in October. When people talk about landmark video games that changed the industry and player expectations, GTA3 is one of the big ones. Looking back now, what surprised you the most about what parts of the game had the biggest impact and influence compared to what you expected?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two things that surprised me the most about Grand Theft Auto\u2019s legacy and impact are the explosion of open world games and the fantasy of playing as a criminal and committing crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today there are games like Schedule 1 where you\u2019re a drug dealer and it isn\u2019t really a great game but it\u2019s this fantasy where you get to play that role, being a criminal and doing whatever you want, and I think games like that are a genre because of GTA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the game itself, I don\u2019t think there was a whole lot of things or one thing that stood out from GTA III itself but I think that\u2019s because we set out to make a game that was seven or eight out of 10 for everything. The AI was pretty good for its time. The physics were pretty good. The shooting was pretty good. Nothing was amazing about GTA III except maybe the music but it was how it all came together as one experience. It was a nice mix and that\u2019s why it exploded to become such a success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did GTA ride a wave or start it with the way entertainment became more dark, like true crime? Did it do for games what The Sopranos did for TV?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Was Grand Theft Auto III to video games what The Sopranos was for TV? Maybe. That was certainly what Leslie Benzies and Sam Houser wanted to do, create something darker. There would be no orcs or wizards or swords. That sort of idea was totally not allowed and we completely moved away from creating games like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was New York\u2019s influence too because they were totally into crime movies, Scarface, all of that stuff, and it seems crazy now but at the time it wasn\u2019t really something that was done. Most video games were still bright, green, happy things like Mario and what not. Grand Theft Auto and especially GTA III was one of the games to bring these darker themes to the mainstream, but I look back at it now and it’s all so cartoonish!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outrage at the time about it being violent and all the bad things you could do, you look at it today, 25 years on, and it\u2019s clearly just these little guys made out of polygons. It\u2019s almost cute in retrospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s so much talk still about the size and make up of the map for GTA6 but you were able to cram so much into the GTA3 that it didn\u2019t feel small, despite how small it was compared to the games that followed. Is there a bit of a lost art to making a GTA city feel so alive and compact when you give designers a much bigger map to play with?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think it all comes down to what people are used to, basically. When GTA III came out, they had no baseline. There was nothing like it. It blew everybody away. Imagine if you released a game like GTA III today, even if it was polished up, it would be a very mediocre game. Nobody would be interested in playing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every Grand Theft Auto game has taken another big step forward to keep blowing people away based on the baseline set by the previous game but GTA III was the biggest step up from what went before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now there have been so many open world games that it\u2019s just not an interesting concept anymore. You load up an Ubisoft game and you look at these big maps and all the points you need to discover and secrets and contacts and to be honest, I look at it and think that\u2019s too much work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GTA III was just so new at the time. I don\u2019t necessarily think there was an art to how we designed the city. We just got there first, more than anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably the biggest story to emerge from our last chat was the idea that we could have had a GTA: Tokyo, and that Rockstar were even in talks with a Japan-based studio. Do you remember any of the discussions at the time over what a GTA game set in Tokyo could have entailed, or changed about the usual formula of the series?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

GTA: Tokyo was a project mostly driven from the New York office. We knew about it over at Rockstar North but we didn\u2019t speak to the studio in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all our ideas of where to take GTA next, and we had Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Istanbul and London and Paris too but Tokyo was the most serious one, and it was just going to be a GTA III style game set in Tokyo. We weren\u2019t going to change too much about the gameplay. There were going to be some things we would add. Samurai swords were going to play a big part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was going to be like Bully. That game was made by another team over at Rockstar\u2019s new studio in Vancouver. They used to be called Barking Dog or something before Take Two bought them but we went over there, gave them all our technology and code and whatever to get them started, and then they went off and did their own thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was going to be the same plan for GTA: Tokyo. It was going to go the same way. It just never got to that point. The contracts were never signed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Yakuza were one of the key gangs in GTA3, and pivotal to the story. Was that part of the thinking as to why the series could have moved to Japan?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Was the role of the Yakuza from GTA III going to play a big part in GTA: Tokyo? No, not at all. The Yakuza were a gang in Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto II and really GTA III was just a 3D version of the original GTA, so we included the gangs from the first game as they were all quite fun. In real life, I don’t think Japanese gangs like the Yakuza have a big presence in New York but for our vision of Liberty City, based on the original GTA, it kind of fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was never an obsession with taking those characters forward however from New York into Japan. The thinking on GTA: Tokyo was that the games never really did that well in Japan, so the idea was that maybe we could get a Japanese studio to make it, who would do a better job of capturing all those cultural references, and then it could be its own thing. We\u2019d then export it back to the west and that was going to be more of a second order effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would you have liked to see the Yakuza characters and stories develop or act as a reference point to any game set in Japan?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sam Houser would come over and discuss the idea of GTA: Tokyo and there would come a point where we\u2019d all get involved but it just never got that far. Our producer, Leslie Benzies, was more involved with the idea. It just never got to the production stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously it could have been a great game. Look at the new Forza game, that is set in Japan. It\u2019s a great setting for it and so there could be lots of opportunities to do things differently in a GTA: Tokyo game with the street racing culture over there, so it was a good idea for sure. I liked the idea of doing it. It just never happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you remember the rough ideas behind why cities like Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul were also considered? What was the draw for the team to look at those locations at the time?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We had our own idea in the Rockstar North office over what we\u2019d do with Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul. We\u2019d get drunk together and start thinking about all the cool ways we could take the game into those cities, and all these ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem really is that it\u2019s so hard to commit to something when you\u2019re creating a game, especially at the scale of a GTA game. It might be a really cool idea but you then have to actually go and make it, and we\u2019d done other experiments before in the team where you end up thinking yes this is cool when you work on it for two months and do you want to spend the next few years on it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a reason why America is such a cool destination for these games because the culture is so over the top and so easy to criticise, and it\u2019s only getting easier and easier over recent years too. It doesn\u2019t make sense in the same way to do a game set in Moscow. It wouldn\u2019t hit people the same way and let\u2019s be honest, driving in snow would be fun at first but you\u2019d get bored with the novelty too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just seems to me that America will always be the best place to set a GTA game so we\u2019re going to be stuck in this loop of the three cities forever with Miami, Los Angeles and New York, which we know as Vice City, Los Santos and Liberty City. But if it takes them 10 years to make each GTA game now then I guess that\u2019s not a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could another studio seize on the opportunity of the hype around a GTA: Europe if Rockstar aren\u2019t interested?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Could another studio or another publisher jump on that hype around a GTA game set in Europe to create a rival to Grand Theft Auto? Yeah, totally. I can see that. There would be interest. The problem is that these games are so big and expensive to develop now that there\u2019s just no chance of competing with Rockstar on this series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back when we were making GTA III and that trilogy, creating a little spin-off in Tokyo would have been fun. Now you\u2019d have to invest something like $2 billion to make a GTA game set somewhere else and that makes it too big of a risk to set it anywhere outside of the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I had $2 billion dollars, I wouldn\u2019t invest it in a GTA game set in Europe but it would be great for somebody to take the idea on because you\u2019d think there would be a market for it, and if GTA game releases are now at least a decade apart, surely you could release a competitor somewhere in the middle of that schedule?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course other people have tried to take on GTA but it just seems strange nobody else has managed to do it. They try and fail and you can\u2019t really argue with the markets. If it doesn\u2019t work, it doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carcer City, the setting for Manhunt, is Rockstar\u2019s version of Chicago. It was mentioned in the 3D games over the radio. Could that be the next big location within the lore of GTA we are still to revisit after doing Liberty City, Vice City, Los Santos and the rest?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure if Carcer City was ever supposed to just be Chicago but it\u2019s quite possible that is a city that the series could still visit after doing Vice City again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We shared an office with the Manhunt team. There was a lot of chat going back and forth but to be honest I don\u2019t think Chicago would be a super interesting city for a GTA game. It\u2019s very generic compared to New York, Los Angeles and Miami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never seriously discussed taking the series there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were there ever any plans to create a crossover game between GTA and Manhunt? How could that have worked?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

No, there was never any plans to have a crossover between Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manhunt was in development hell for quite a few years because that can be what happens sometimes in game development. The technology was a little too tricky at the time and they had a really ambitious plan for the AI and the characters and they had to scale it all down. They were just happy when they got it out the door, thank god!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we merged the two teams, which everyone was happy with. They got to work on Grand Theft Auto after being stuck in development hell and watching us ship GTA III and Vice City, and so they joined in the middle of the development of San Andreas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For them it was fun and for us it was great because we needed the manpower to do all the extra features we had planned into San Andreas but there was never any plan for us to have a crossover game or even Manhunt 2 or anything like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We obviously got the stealth kills in San Andreas. I guess that could be considered a bit of a crossover between the games if you wanted to call it that but that was definitely a mistake to put stealth into San Andreas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going back to Vice City, is there anything about Miami and the wider Florida area that you wish you could have done more to capture or play around with when you made Vice City that the team at Rockstar should now have the time and technology to bring to life?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We had plans to have the swamps and the Florida Keys in the original Vice City. We were going to have those areas in the game and that\u2019s all forgotten about now but we had it all planned out, we had artists working on those areas, but they eventually got removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the biggest area they can improve on in GTA VI now with how far everything has come but they also have a million artists who can just work on things and you can make decisions where you won\u2019t get punished as much anymore by what else you would have to sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just love the set up they\u2019re going to have now where you\u2019ll have this big core city and the countryside around it, and I hope they limit the map to that. Creating three cities like we did in San Andreas was a mistake whereas GTA IV was just a little bit boring. What they are making now with GTA VI will just be perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given how much work you put into the weather systems in the 3D era, is that an area they could expand on in GTA VI with proper hurricane effects?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve heard the rumours that they are working on some crazy water physics to recreate extreme weather but I don\u2019t know whether we\u2019ll see it in GTA VI. It would be cool if they could manage it. Dealing with a proper hurricane could be a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the way that Rockstar keeps everything under wraps but now they\u2019re going to do an introduction to the new game\u2019s gameplay on Netflix, and I think that is a mistake. I think they should just not do that. Keep it all quiet. I remember when San Andreas came out, I went to the video game store at midnight, and people were taking it home with no idea what they were about to discover. They knew the characters, they knew about the cities, but there was so much more about it that they didn\u2019t know about, and that was so much fun. Just go home and be completely surprised by the game. I am a little bit disappointed that they are going to ruin that this time with GTA VI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you make of the decision to bring the teaser to Netflix? Would that be a Take Two decision or a sign of how Rockstar are changing after Sam Hauser\u2019s departure?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think Dan Houser leaving Rockstar has anything to do with the GTA VI teaser going to Netflix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Sam Houser was doing more of that work anyway looking after production and publishing work, and he was making the big decisions around things like that. Dan was not really the person driving that stuff so I doubt it has shifted too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the thinking is that everyone else does these reveals now, so maybe we should too? I think that\u2019s a mistake. They should just have gone no, we\u2019re Rockstar. We\u2019re not going to do what everyone else does. Let\u2019s not say anything until release day. Just shadow drop it. It\u2019d be so cool. Surprise! It\u2019s out now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You told me that Vice City was the game you enjoyed working on the most. What do you think must be the most fun part of whatever they\u2019re doing around GTA6? Is it bringing such a vibrant place to life?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For me personally, I would love to see them bring back more of the goofy gameplay from the earlier games but I assume that doesn\u2019t fit with the vision for GTA VI anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we were making Vice City and San Andreas, we weren\u2019t exactly underdogs but we had this reputation for doing weird stuff, and Rockstar have lost that reputation over the years, and now it\u2019s more driven by what people see in the movies. If it was still my game, I would have wanted more offbeat, weird missions and stuff like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at what we\u2019ve seen so far, I think they\u2019ve completely nailed Miami. I think they\u2019ve done a great job and I\u2019m looking forward to playing GTA VI and discovering all the detail that they have put into their Vice City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miami is the ideal setting for a GTA game. It\u2019s a weird city. It\u2019s violent. A sexy and raunchy. It’s just perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you remember, and what can you tell me about Darkel, the mission provider that was cut from GTA3 who was originally supposed to send you out to try and bring down the Liberty City economy through bombings?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We didn\u2019t cut Darkel from GTA III because of 9\/11 because that happened really late in the development process, just a month or so before we released the game, and we only made a few small changes like the design of the police cars and stuff like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darkel got cut long before that and he was an interesting character. He was much darker and super violent. I think the reason why he was cut is that we just didn\u2019t have enough missions for him, and it also felt a little bit out of character for GTA III. It was too serious, too violent, even for a Grand Theft Auto game where you were playing as a criminal blowing things up and killing people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We looked at it and thought, do we really need this in the game? But the main problem was that there just weren\u2019t enough missions for Darkel. Our producer Leslie Benzies had a big wall in the boardroom with all these post it notes and a contact point would have between three and five missions, something like that. It just seemed better to move Darkel\u2019s missions to other contact points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a fan theory that Darkel was included in GTA4 as a bit of an easter egg, as some re-textured NPC running around the sewers. Do you remember anything like that from the game?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t aware of Darkel being in the sewers in GTA IV but his model was still in GTA III. With so many things going on, it\u2019s quite possible he\u2019s in GTA IV too, wandering the subways, but it seems unlikely. It is possible though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had all sorts of easter eggs and myths around the games. The yeti was one in San Andreas and people went out looking for it. A lot of people thought they could hear it once they got into the forests but it was actually the sound of your character\u2019s stomach after they spent hours in the forests without feeding CJ, and that was probably the first time they heard that sound effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back then it was relatively easy to hide something like that in a game, but it\u2019s much harder to hide something on a disc. People can go file by file and discover things. No one has found the yeti in San Andreas but I love the story around it. It\u2019s a lot of fun seeing people become that engaged with a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could we see some of the work Rockstar put into Red Dead Redemption 2 and the swamp areas carry over into GTA VI?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

GTA VI could use some of the work we saw in Red Dead Redemption II and it would be fun to see if they pack the game with secrets like they did with Red Dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean we all know about the UFOs and stuff like that but there was one that was only just discovered a couple of months ago because it was so hard to trigger, and I couldn\u2019t believe what they had you do to find it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You had to go to a place on the map, align these three points, find a fourth a point and then it was all revealed but how do people find this stuff? It\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You explained how a foreign GTA game wouldn\u2019t quite work last time we spoke but seeing the chaos in other locations around the world at the moment, if not a crime game like GTA do you think it\u2019s inevitable we see games use those settings to create open world experiences, as we saw with the Commando series around the time of GTA3?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I really don\u2019t think it would be a good idea for a Grand Theft Auto game set somewhere like the Strait of Hormuz. Leave that for Call of Duty and those games. That\u2019s their thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A GTA game should be an escapist experience, not a realistic conflict. That\u2019s the last thing you want. Imagine having to worry about gas prices in GTA VI. That\u2019s not what you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the base version of GTA6 isn\u2019t going to be the game to break the $100 barrier for a new release, will we ever see a game break that ceiling? If GTA can\u2019t do it, what game can??<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If the base game of GTA VI can\u2019t break the $100 barrier, will any game get there? Well, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s a target for publishers now to charge more for the base game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their target is to expand the user base as much as possible and make their money from downloadable content or in Grand Theft Auto\u2019s case GTA: Online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think they figured it out and realised some people would still buy GTA VI if they priced it at $270 but mathematically you\u2019d end up earning even more money if you lower the price, get more people into the game, and make money off them longer-term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to price gouge players won\u2019t help you down the road and I think for most publishers it\u2019s kind of crazy to be charging so much up front. It\u2019s something like 75% of revenue for games like GTA isn\u2019t from the initial sales of the game, anymore. It would be foolish to sort of charge players a bigger premium for the base game if that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said GTA 6\u2019s $100 premium edition is outselling the standard $80. Could we see gaming companies releasing \u201cbarebones\u201d standard editions for $70, $80 just to make $100 editions look more acceptable?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I mean it doesn’t surprise me that people will pay $100 for GTA VI. A lot of people would even pay double that, even for the standard experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then you\u2019ve got stuff like extra skins, stories, clothing and I don\u2019t really play games to do all that stuff anyway so I\u2019ll just pick up the base version on my standard PS5 and I\u2019m good, but it\u2019s a sign of how the business model has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not about the initial price. It\u2019s how much you charge people later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having gone through the experience yourself of seeing GTA become this huge entertainment juggernaut, do you think the world and especially the media are ready for how big GTA6 is going to become? Could it be a seminal moment where the sheer scale of its success and player base dwarfs movies, TV, music to such a degree it resets how we talk about these topics as serious business and cultural things?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Does anyone really care if GTA VI makes old people care about video games?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think anyone my age or under is unaware of the significance of video games but I listened to a really dumb interview on Dutch radio with this older guy saying how the kids are playing a lot of video games these days and I was thinking, where have you been for the last 30 years?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not something that keeps me up at night when people don\u2019t take video games seriously enough. Everyone else already knows that video games are now bigger than music and movies put together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s strange to me is the way people play games now. It used to be that you\u2019d buy a game, finish it and then buy the next one. That\u2019s not happening anymore. My kids play the same game for thousands and thousands of hours. It\u2019s not good news for the industry, and obviously the industry is shrinking, and that\u2019s because people play the same game for so long that the whole model for making a new game is broken. It just doesn\u2019t work anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also have the problem that people don\u2019t want to spend their free time learning now to play these big new games. You read reviews saying that the game becomes fun after 15 hours. I don\u2019t have 15 hours to waste to get to the fun part!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you play the games you already know, and maybe there\u2019s some extra content that comes out for you over time, it just makes more sense now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you make of the idea that players and creators will be able to make real money from their user generated content on GTA6? Is that going to be the true source of innovation to shake up the industry with GTA6?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t see user generated content being the gamechanger for GTA VI because so much of that core GTA experience is so highly polished. That\u2019s kind of become Rockstar\u2019s thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you suddenly have user-made buildings and cars or weird laser weapons or whatever, it\u2019s not going to fit. It\u2019s going to take away from the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the mistake they made with GTA: Online where they introduced too many weird vehicles and flying machines and everything else so I don\u2019t think GTA is the best candidate for this idea. Fortnite and Roblox are obviously such better platforms for that but I could be wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I really want to see from GTA VI is a push to make GTA: Online better. There is a lot of room for improvement there. If they can make it a full 200 player experience, I think that would be really cool, and really deliver. That would require having separate servers, which they don\u2019t have at the moment for GTA: Online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment, you 32 players all connected to each other but no server. Once you have a server, you could actually have several hundred players, and that would be the next step for Grand Theft Auto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think they\u2019re obviously going to try it with the UGC idea but we\u2019ll see what happens. It could work great for racing tracks and ideas like that. It could even be fun. But as a gamer, I wouldn\u2019t really be looking forward to that in GTA VI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of GTA\u2019s biggest tricks on PS2 was making traffic feel infinite under strict memory budgets. What was the actual logic engine behind spawning and despawning cars right outside the player\u2019s line of sight without crashing the game? Do we have the hardware and tech now to flood the world with cars to make a US highway as busy as it would be in the real world versions of New York and LA? Could we see true gridlock on the streets of Vice City with GTA6?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even in GTA VI, you couldn\u2019t fill a city with cars like we see in the real world. It wouldn\u2019t work. I worked on the code for the 3D games for generating cars and I never got it quite right. There were an infinite number of bugs and players would send me screenshots showing a street that was suddenly empty of cars or suddenly busy when it shouldn\u2019t have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think computers are ready to give us a Grand Theft Auto game in a five kilometer city full of cars, and I don\u2019t think the AI would be able to cope with it either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would be the challenge for GTA: Online too if you had a big city with 200 players and everybody needing to see the city looking alive and full of cars, because they\u2019re all so spread out, and everyone needs to see the same number of cars around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my head, I still think like I\u2019m creating GTA III and you can only have 20 cars before your computer starts to slow down so maybe it will be possible for them to do in GTA VI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think quantum computers will be all that useful but if they can populate a GTA city with cars that would make the technology worth it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GTA IV\u2019s dynamic euphoria physics were heavy and realistic, while GTA V smoothed driving and ragdolls out for faster arcade gameplay. What balance do you expect or hope Rockstar strikes for vehicle and character physics in GTA 6?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Euphoria stuff is definitely more expensive than normal animation for hardware so they’ll have normal animation and then when you interact with the character or object they’ll maybe switch to Euphoria and then as soon as possible go back to normal animations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we were making GTA IV, even if you had four or five models reacting with the Euphoria system it really slowed the game down so I don\u2019t think we are at a place yet where all of the animations in GTA VI will be procedurally generated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Classic GTA games were famous for absurd cheat codes (pedestrian riots, flying cars, exploding traffic). What sort of crazy GTA cheat codes would you love to see the series embrace again in GTA6? Flying crocodiles firing AK47s?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think they should bring back the big heads cheat code for GTA VI. That would be cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every game during the era where we made GTA III had a big head cheat. I don\u2019t know why it was such a thing and it doesn\u2019t really fit gaming anymore in 2026 but I would love to see some of these cheats back in the new game along with changing the weather and infinite ammo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the reason maybe they don’t have so many of them anymore is because of GTA: Online where it would be so much easier cheat, and even if cheat codes didn\u2019t activate in GTA: Online, it wouldn\u2019t be difficult to get around that. You could hack in and find out how to activate them anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheat codes were just one of those wacky things that existed for a while that have gone away now but it used to be a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The costs of memory and graphics cards have gone crazy, and there\u2019s talk of games console prices never coming back down to the levels gamers were used to. Does that mean the future could be mid-range PC gaming if consoles no longer give people a relatively affordable way into gaming?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The cost of consoles could see a shift towards PC gaming or even a real opportunity for cloud gaming at last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People have been trying that for ages but now there\u2019s actually a real reason to go and make it work because you could easily imagine people preferring to spend $200 on a cloud gaming console over a $1,000 console, so long as everything works nice and smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I was Microsoft, that\u2019s what I\u2019d look into for the next Xbox. I think it could definitely cause a shift in things. For Rockstar, they wouldn\u2019t have to make a decision on GTA VII though. They can just start work, begin development and these days PC and console are basically the same platform. It just comes down to how many polygons it can push.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later on they can decide if they want to do PC first or console first, but it\u2019s such a shame because consoles have been such a great way to get people into gaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You didn\u2019t have to have a PC that could be complicated or get viruses or break down or whatever. You could just have this box that would almost always work and it cost you $300-400, and it was always optimised for the games you wanted to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s going away now with all these crazy prices and I think the reality is that they\u2019ll just run the PS5 for longer, maybe three or four years beyond what they planned, before there\u2019s even any talk of a PS6 or viable successor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s kind of a shame but it was already happening anyway. It used to be that at their peak, Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation would sell maybe 200 million units and now it\u2019s just over 100 million combined, so the players are already moving to the PC anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could that open up more of a space for smaller studios to step into GTA\u2019s space if the focus on graphics shifts down the list of priorities in the industry?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think it would be amazing if we see more games like GTA out there but I just think competing with Rockstar is going to be difficult so it would have to be something quirkier, or maybe more retro. Aim for a PS1 style or something like that. You just can\u2019t touch the production standards of Rockstar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully there\u2019ll be more different games that people can be focusing on, and one aspect of GTA where they don\u2019t need to compete is on the graphics. They could still be pretty decent but there\u2019s definitely a law of diminishing returns where the way a game looks just doesn\u2019t matter anymore. Graphics have been good enough for a long time now. We basically hit that point 10 years ago. Games are beautiful. I don\u2019t need to play another one because it is only marginally better looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look at GTA VI. They\u2019ve spent \u00a32 billion on it. They didn\u2019t spend that money on my behalf. I don\u2019t need 10 million polygons on screen at any one point. I\u2019m happy with one million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I definitely think we\u2019re seeing that trend already emerge with more games that are stylised or with lower polygon counts or with pixel art or that retro feel, and that\u2019s fine too. We don\u2019t need to always try for photorealism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that makes it easier for people to make interesting games without spending $100 million, that\u2019s great. We just need the big studios to reach that same realisation before I don\u2019t want to pick up a Ubisoft game that\u2019s just repeating the same formula with the bigger maps and all that but with slightly better graphics each time. I want a more focused experience. Give me 15 hours for $30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Rockstar go too deep with RDR2 into the wrong things compared to less graphically impressive games from the 90s or 00s that put greater focus on gameplay?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With Red Dead Redemption II I loved just riding around on my horse, seeing the wildlife and exploring the world. That was really cool. That\u2019s the experience I want. Let\u2019s say that\u2019s the sandbox experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then you have the story bolted on too, and in my mind the story in Red Dead Redemption II isn\u2019t that great, and you could tell it in a movie like an hour and a half, so I\u2019m playing 40-50 hours a game to receive a story that\u2019s just a normal story. Nothing special or interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d prefer to play the game and people who like the story can go and watch it as a movie instead rather than playing a game with a movie attached to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, most people loved Red Dead II but I think it had its flaws, and I didn\u2019t always enjoy it. I liked the sandbox part of that game a lot more than the story part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Rockstar asked you to dial back your personal dev blog to preserve the ‘Rockstar mystique,’ what was your reaction? Do you feel AAA studios lose something by keeping creative history so secretive compared to the open dev diaries of indie games?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

No, I haven’t heard from them at all. IYou say Rockstar but it was only like one of the people I used to work with. It wasn’t like from New York or anything like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, I’ve sent tweets and stuff like that and done interviews and I’ve not heard from them about it. Dan Hauser’s been doing his interviews. He’s even gone on the bloody Lex Friedman podcast with five million followers! So I don’t think they can say that I can’t talk about my work for them anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be honest I don’t really understand because I still love Rockstar. I\u2019m criticizing them. I still love the company and I love the games that they make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a technical point of view, do we miss or gain something if games are no longer sold in physical media?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think everybody has fond memories of plugging a cartridge into your N64 or an Atari 2600 or whatever, and it’s just like something you own. You have that game and you can lend it to somebody and you can get it back. I will miss that a little bit but at the same time I haven’t actually bought a game in the store for 15 years so I can’t really complain that the publishers are discontinuing that practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, the disc was never really that important anyway because it was only version one and you still needed to go online and update it and patch it soI think it’s just the way games are going. It’s a little sad but nobody buys discs anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you make of gamers losing games they\u2019ve purchased from digital libraries without physical media?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether or not you have access to your game in an online library doesn\u2019t have much to do with the disc issue because even if you have the disc, they can still just discontinue the server and you can\u2019t play the game anymore anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is terrible though. There really should be laws against it. If you buy a game, it should be available and ready to play for at least a certain amount of years or something because it is ridiculous that people can buy a game and six months later it stops working. That\u2019s obviously not acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s next for Plentiful?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, Plentiful doesn’t have a server component so you’re always going to be able to play it unless something happens to Steam!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you enjoy a sort of puzzly game designer for relaxing and using your brains a little bit but not too much, then I think Plentiful could be for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then again if you’re reading this because of GTA then the chances are it’s probably not for you but whatever. Enjoy games. Just spend more time just getting into games and less time talking about games, if anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former Technical Director of the Grand Theft Auto series, Obbe Vermeij, has warned Rockstar to make a video game with GTA VI and not to make the same mistakes that turned Red Dead Redemption II into an experience trying too hard to be a movie. Speaking to Thunderpick following the release of the extended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16504,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503\/revisions\/16504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}