GTA VI: the dream of living NPCs comes back to the surface

Obbe Vermeij, former technical director of Rockstar North who worked on Grand Theft Auto III until Grand Theft Auto IV, told Edge Magazine that Grand Theft Auto IV was designed to have a truly inhabited population, an idea that is about to take life in Grand Theft Auto V thanks to the RP server (Roleplay) developed for over a decade. According to Rockstar Games' long-time developer, producer Leslie Benzies wanted NPCs in Liberty City to have their lives. The idea was a city that kept working with people who had a place to go and things to do. Unfortunately, Rockstar's brilliant guys were limited by the technology of their time. Vermeij said that the team worked for a while before surrendering, because the whole thing turned into a disaster, adding that he didn’t even think it was important. From his point of view, the players are perfectly comfortable with the pedestrians a little empty and artificial, provided the surrounding city seems alive, which makes sense considering that he told us once the cities of Rockstar have always worked on illusion rather than simulation, and that the only thing that breaks the spell is not a superficial NPC, but one that walks down against a wall. Vermeij was wrong. In addition to the RP server powered by the I mentioned, Red Dead Redemption 2 provided a real slice of this feature once abandoned, with NPC with routine and also a kind of memory, inhabitants of the city who greeted you differently the second time around you based on how the first meeting took place. The dream of living NPCs through three Rockstar games The idea swept away from Vermeij in 2008 continued to re-affiorate, better funded every time. The moment of all this is really fun, because the functionality that Vermeij had discouraged as too complicated is now, seventeen years later, essentially the main promise of Grand Theft Auto VI. Every escape and expectation points to the most reactive and simulated city ever tempted by Rockstar. The dream was postponed and returned with a bigger budget behind it. Yet Vermeij was not entirely wrong. Red Dead Redemption 2, any GTA 6 manages, remains primarily a magic trick. These NPCs don't really have lives. They have convincing routines that exist within the small bubble around you and turn off when you leave. Rockstar has become extremely good in illusion. He never built the simulation, because it turned out that illusion was the part that counted. So if you imagine a GTA 6 where every person on the street really has a home to come back to, they don’t have it. Vice City and Los Santos will seem alive. The NPCs in it will simply have no real lives, and we will find out how convincing the latest version of the old Rockstar skewer of the decade, on November 19. Quello che mi colpisce è la distanza tra l’ambizione originale e il risultato finale. Vermeij descrive un "disastro" per via della complessità, ma è proprio questa ambizione a spingere Rockstar a investire in modo tale da creare una Port Gellhorn che sembri non solo vivida, ma reale. Il fatto che i pedoni artificiali di sempre siano stati sufficienti al franchise mi fa pensare che la sfida principale non sarà replicare un'intera vita urbana, ma piuttosto colpire quel senso di routine e presenza, quell’illusione che rende le città GTA così irresistibili. Considerando il sondaggio PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X/S con una netta predominanza, è chiaro che Rockstar punta a sfruttare al massimo la potenza di elaborazione di queste console per raggiungere questo obiettivo. E, francamente, non mi sorprenderebbe affatto se, dopo anni di lavoro, si trattasse più di un'illusione sofisticata che di una vera simulazione: il focus rimane sulla creazione di un ambiente credibile, con i dettagli che contano tanto quanto la simulazione della vita cittadina. La vicenda di Bogue, con le oltre sessanta audizioni, è inquietante. Il fatto che non lo abbiano preso nemmeno come comparso, e che addirittura abbia dovuto chiedere a gran voce una parte, fa pensare che il team voglia davvero un'immersione totale, quasi ossessiva, nel ruolo degli NPC. E mi chiedo se questo, alla fine, non rappresenti la vera difficoltà: non replicare la città, ma rendere gli abitanti credibili al punto da far dimenticare al giocatore che si sta giocando a un videogioco.

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