Former GTA dev says 'it's time for a revolution' where 'animation is more AI-driven and physics-driven' than done by hand

The last time Rockstar Games revealed something about GTA 6 it was the first trailer, which premiered on December 4 and promptly shattered the Guiness World Record for views of a videogame reveal on YouTube. Since then… nothing. And before that… also nothing! Most of the info we've gotten about GTA 6 over the years is from that massive leak of gameplay footage in 2022, and when the December trailer leaked just ahead of Rockstar officially releasing it.

According to Obbe Vermeij, technical director at Rockstar North from 1995 to 2009, however, huge leaks aren't as devastating as they may appear. In an interview with YouTuber SanInPlay last week, spotted by GamesRadar, Vermeij offered his views on leaks and Rockstar's marketing strategy, and also made some predictions about the future of videogame animation.

"The leaks are not as important as people think," he said. "It's just because there's millions of people waiting for any news. And Rockstar doesn't give them any news."

Vermeij said in the interview that he "can totally understand" why game publishers like Rockstar remain silent leading up to a new game launch, despite fans desperate for any shred of new information. "Whenever a big company says anything, whether it's Rockstar, EA, or Ubisoft, or whatever, it gets analyzed and it often gets spun negatively," he said. "It turns into a negative thing. From their point of view, their best bet is just to be quiet. That's what they're doing."

Vermeij said "it's a shame" that developers won't speak more freely and more often, adding "it's not just their fault. It's also the fault of the public. Everybody's attacking the big companies all the time, so they're just better off being quiet."

Ironically, Vermeij hasn't been quiet about GTA himself. He started a blog last year about his work on GTA 3 & 4, as well as Vice City and San Andreas… and promptly got an email from Rockstar about it. 

"I genuinely didn't think anyone would mind me talking about 20 year old games but I was wrong," he wrote in the blog's final entry in 2023. "Something about ruining the Rockstar mystique or something." At the same time, Vermeij insisted it was his idea to take the blog down. "No pressure from R*," he wrote. "My own choice."

But just because he won't write about GTA doesn't mean he won't talk about it. While Vermeij has "no inside information" about GTA 6, he did some speculation about a scene in the trailer that "blows him away." It's the scene on the beach, where "everybody seems to be doing something else. Every character has its own animation. I think it looks pretty amazing."

It's possible all those different animations aren't hand-made. Vermeij said he's heard "some rumors of [GTA 6 using] pretty new technology having to do with animation and AI and all that stuff," he said.

"I think it's time for a revolution where animation is maybe not hand animated anymore but it would be more AI-driven and physics-driven," Vermeij said. "We also did some of that in GTA 4, of course. I think if anyone is going to make that step it's going to be Rockstar."

Vermeij also said he doesn't expect GTA 6 to be "wildly different than GTA 5" and suspects "people might be a little disappointed" if there aren't any major innovations in the new game. Regardless, he said it's still "going to be the best game out there."

You can watch the entire interview with Obbe Vermeij by SanInPlay here on YouTube.