In March 2023, despite Rockstar's silence, we've learned quite a bit about Grand Theft Auto 6 from an insider.
The insider revealed the revolutionary technology that will be used in this production, but that's not all we're going to talk about in today's **, so let's get straight to the point. Alex Venturas is one of the most trusted insiders who focuses on the revolutionary technology that will be implemented in Grand Theft Auto 6. According to his post, Rockstar San Diego has formed a new team of about 20 people dedicated exclusively to physical systems. The most revolutionary aspect is expected to be the hydrophysical system, which you can see in the deleted tweets.
It's a technology that has never been used in the video game industry before, probably because of the need for players to have advanced hardware. Nvidia has tried w**eworks 10 and 20, but the balance between realism and performance has never been good enough. In addition to its stunning appearance and physics, it is also expected to pave the way for players to participate in water sports, such as surfing. However, since this technology has not been used before, there are certain risks. As insiders report, Rockstar Games decided to take this step, taking into account any potential issues, given the huge revenue generated by Grand Theft Auto Online since 2013.
But that's not all. Now in a post on a Reddit channel focused on Grand Theft Auto 6, a user pointed out that Rockstar has filed several very interesting patents related to the technologies being used in Grand Theft Auto 6, all of which rely on artificial intelligence. I discussed one of them in the previous **, which focuses on techniques for creating indoor environments in a programmatic way. If you haven't seen that yet, you can check it out. However, Reddit users are particularly interested in two variables, one about NPC behavior, which may indicate that these will be more intelligent and natural in behavior. The advanced AI that controls pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto 6 sounds like a very good idea that could take the entire series to a higher level. It sounds like a play on words, and they've injected new layers of life into NPCs, making them more than just background items.
Imagine walking down a rainy street in the game and you see an NPC hurriedly opening their umbrella, which is what we call the level of detail. These NPCs don't just follow preset scripts, their actions, emotions, and even animations are generated by AI, making each encounter unique. For example, if an NPC gets wet in the rain, they may react differently, some may run to shelter from the rain, and some may happily go for a walk. It's not just an animation for everyone, but a series of reactions that make the game world feel very realistic. And it's even better, if an NPC is drunk, they won't just stagger around in the loop, the AI may decide what they do, sit down at random with vague words, or even try to interact with you or other NPCs in an unavoidable way. Now consider that you do something out of the ordinary in the game, like driving down the stairs, in the old game, the NPC might just run away or stand still, but in Grand Theft Auto 6, they might pull out their phone and record you, react in surprise, and even cheer you on. The range of potential reactions adds a sense of incompetence and excitement to every action you make in the game. They also mentioned how these NPCs are built? They are made up of various components such as torso, arms, legs, and can be mixed and matched to create a varied look. This system extends to their clothing and accessories, marked with descriptors, such as casual, business, or sporty, allowing for the creation of a wide range of character styles for different game environments.
The patent outlines a system whereby every piece of clothing, whether it is a jacket or a disguise like a mask, is marked with a descriptor like an "extra top." These aren't just tags, they affect the game in real-time. For example, in a cold environment, NPCs wearing jackets may have their health decline more slowly due to extra warmth. This level of detail extends to efficiency as well. If the NPC is wearing a jacket, the game may choose to render only the visible part under the shirt to save processing power and ensure that the game runs more smoothly without compromising visual details. What's even more fascinating is how this metadata layer dynamically affects the game world? For example, a rundown community can gradually transform as you progress through the game, and changes in the appearance of NPCs and surroundings reflect improvement or decay, depending on the player's actions. Imagine an old, dilapidated part of the town that gradually transforms as you progress through the game, replacing the objects labeled "old" and "shabby" with objects labeled "new" and "hipster", reflecting the gentrification of the real world.
This tagging system also plays a vital role in procedurally generated personas and environments. Need to create crowds for a movie theater scene? The game can automatically fill it with characters suitable for casual movie outings, and even adjust it according to the type of movie being struck. This ensures that every scene, every background character, feels just right in the game settings. This system is not static, and developers can add new tags as needed, allowing for a dynamic and ever-evolving game world. NPCs' appearance and behavior can be customized on the fly, ensuring that they always fit the scene, whether it's a high-end event or a street food stall.
In addition, players also noticed patents related to navigation and map movement. As has long been rumored, Grand Theft Auto 6's map is supposed to be huge, so all areas or estates are expected to be significantly different from each other. It looks like the company has bigger plans for this, at least according to the patents filed, and fans claim that the company wants to build something powerful out of it. What would it actually look like? We'll find out in about a year.
However, in the context of the AI-based patents filed by Rockstar, it is interesting that we recently learned that CD Projekt Red does not intend to use artificial intelligence in The Witcher 4 at all. In an interview with Forbes, Adam Badowski revealed that hundreds of people are expected to be involved in the development of the Witcher series, and AI will not play a decisive role in the production process. However, it's worth noting that the Polish developer created a team to explore how this technology could be applied to their work? Still, CD Projekt does not think it will replace its employees. "We think AI is something that can help improve certain processes in game production, but it doesn't replace people," the co-CEO said. ”
It's very interesting because the two highly anticipated games take different approaches to a very critical issue, and we might as well call a spade a spade. There's no denying that Rockstar Games faces a huge challenge, and it can be very difficult to meet the extremely high expectations of players. Recently, the Grand Theft Auto community has been boiling over with some very interesting news that we've gotten straight from Rockstar Games announcing the changes they've made to the legal agreement. The studio shared that players will need input and when this will take effect. So late on Friday, Rockstar Support sent a tweet and a link to a detailed support webpage. They tweeted that they would be merging the terms of service and the end user license agreement. This is essentially merging them together to create new terms of service.
The interesting part is 82 Auto-generated player part, they say that as part of the service, we may offer you the opportunity to play with friends or other matched opponents, and to ensure you have available opponents of the right skill level, there may be auto-generated computer human players among these matched opponents who look and play just like real people. Okay, if you've ever played Grand Theft Auto 5's mode, you'll know that AI-controlled characters in GTA games are nothing new, there are already AI-controlled characters in GTA, and you'll see them in the jobs and missions you'll see. As far as I know, we've never had a bot that looks and acts like a human player. This raises a series of questions about how these bots will fit into the gameplay and how will they affect the overall experience?
Even the reliable ***tez funds 2 responded to the updated terms, saying that we don't have the ability to match and play with bot players in Red Dead Redemption Online or Grand Theft Auto Online, so this may also be for Grand Theft Auto Online, especially with indications that they are working on dedicated hosts to manage group matchmaking, which will replace the old group matching logic.
However, another twist came from Spider Vice, another well-informed community member, who noted that Rockstar's new terms of service appear to be a direct copy of Take 2 Interactive's universal terms of service, including a section on auto-generated players. This observation suggests that this fascinating clause may not be an exclusive insight into future Rockstar projects, but rather a standard part of Take 2's broader legal framework, which applies to all of its games. So, this is confirmed if we open the official ** of Take 2 and its legal section, where the legal terms listed appear to be the same as those of Rockstar's update, indicating that the new terms of service are not exclusive to Rockstar, nor do they indicate specific future plans for Grand Theft Auto Online 2, but rather a unified update of all of Take2's possessions.
To be clear, this doesn't mean that Grand Theft Auto Online 2 won't have anything like this, it just means that the updated terms of service weren't inadvertently leaked, and it certainly still appears in Grand Theft Auto Online 2. And, while we were still talking about the topic of the Rockstar Games update, we also got an official announcement that they would stop supporting Windows 7 and 8 in their games. The company announced this decision in October 2023, but effective from Tuesday, January 30, they have released a new update. So basically this means that if you want to play Rockstar Games games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and its ** mode, Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA Trilogy, Max Payne 3 or any other title, you will need to upgrade your operating system to Windows 10 or 11.
When Grand Theft Auto 5 was released for PC, Windows 7 was already 6 years old, and Grand Theft Auto Online has gone through a long list of updates over the past 8 years. I'm curious what system you're using now? Let me know in the comments below. I upgraded to Windows 11 last year and am happy with how well it works.
It's also worth noting that many major games have also stopped supporting Windows 7 and 8 in the last few months, and all this is not limited to Rockstar, even the entire platform Steam no longer supports Windows 7 or 8 as of January 1, 2024, 5M, CFXThe RE team also pointed out to the community in their monthly blog post that their platform will no longer support older versions of Windows this year. The team was acquired by Rockstar Games in August 2023 and has been working closely together ever since. Microsoft ended support for these Windows versions in 2020 and 2023, respectively. This is not unexpected, and this happens with most operating systems over time.
Since there are no new security updates, it's best to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11 to get the latest security protections. You can check if your computer is compatible with Windows 11 on Microsoft Official**? 