IO Interactive AI programmer claims that NPCs in GTA 6 are at least 10 years ahead of the industry

IO Interactive AI programmer Berkay Dursun spoke about the crowd technology in GTA 6, comparing it to the work done at his own studio. The comments came after gameplay clips leaked online shortly before Rockstar Games published its Extended Look video.

Players started comparing the density of pedestrians in the new title to street scenes from older Hitman games, where crowds have traditionally been one of the series' signature features. Dursun said that comparison doesn't really hold up from a technical standpoint.

Berkay Dursun, AI programmer at IO Interactive:

As someone who worked for 3 years directly at IO on this crowd technology, I can say that this crowd technology has no relation to the technology in GTA 6.

In GTA, every character is simulated individually, and achieving simulations on this scale puts them at least 10 years ahead of the industry. The closest game that does simulation at this level might be Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord, and yes, I worked on that game too lol

The programmer pointed out that dense crowds have been part of the series since Hitman: Blood Money back in 2006, but the way they work is fundamentally different. Crowds in those scenes aren't full NPCs, and there's no AI running behind them.

According to Dursun, these characters just play out preset behavior patterns, acting as moving scenery. A real NPC has its own logic, reacts to player actions, and follows individual behavior models, which gets extremely expensive resource-wise once you're dealing with large numbers of them.

The characters you see here or in the environment in Assassin's Creed, etc., aren't NPCs; they're Crowd. There's no AI behind them; they just do "extra" roles in a certain pattern. An NPC has AI behind it and reacts to the player, has its own behavior patterns, etc., and those are costly operations for a large number of NPCs.

Dursun also touched on his own studio's recent release, 007 First Light. He wouldn't share the exact number of "real NPCs" in the spy thriller, but admitted the title doesn't come close to GTA 6 in that regard. He went further, estimating that the number of full NPCs in 007 First Light "can't even be a quarter" of what's in Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord.

Rockstar Games, meanwhile, showed off a substantial amount of gameplay in its Extended Look video, including snippets of story missions and free roaming through the open world. The developer promises reworked driving, navigation, and theft systems that will demand a lot more from players.

Tracking how the world reacts to crimes will fall to a mechanic called "Criminal Profiles". The system takes the context of player actions into account, letting players escalate situations using their arsenal or de-escalate conflicts instead.

GTA 6 launches November 19th on PS5 and Xbox Series.