Rockstar's secretive nature is being challenged as former dev Obbe Vermeij spills insights on Grand Theft Auto.
Former Rockstar North developer Obbe Vermeij is back at it again, spilling secrets and revealing details about his time with the makers of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. However, this time around instead of addressing some quirk from a 3D era classic, the former developer looks to the future and comments, speculatively, on Grand Theft Auto 6.
One of the pioneers of the mainline GTA games, Vermeij had a hand in every Grand Theft Auto game, as well as other Rockstar titles, until leaving the studio in 2009. Since then, Vermeij has kept himself busy with his educational software startup, Learnia, as well as explaining details about some of the franchise's most infamous glitches.
Now, in an hour-long interview with YouTuber SanInPlay (which Vermeij points out is in English despite the Portuguese title), Vermeij shared how he believes that Grand Theft Auto 6 could potentially disappoint some fans.
At the 33:15 mark, the interviewer mentioned the jump in graphics, content, and scale between the older GTA titles and the ones that succeeded them and how making a similar jump from GTA 5 to GTA 6 could present a challenge for Rockstar Games. Vermeij agreed, saying:
You don't really have that technology jump to make things different and better. So, I think, yeah, so I think, GTA 6 is not going to be wildly different from GTA 5.
However, Vermeij added that Rockstar will probably surprise everyone, although he didn't discount the possibility that the high expectations set by previous GTA entries, not to mention all the hype, could lead to disappointment.
Specifically, he explains that the video game industry will never see a jump in quality similar to what happened between Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto IV, which came out in 2004 and 2008, respectively.
Grand Theft Auto 6 has been in development for the better part of the past decade. It wasn't until last December that Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive became very vocal about the game, talking it up as a multi-billion-dollar title that will set a new creative benchmark in the entertainment industry.
The rest of the industry is also keeping a close eye on GTA 6. It's believed that Xbox is waiting for a more specific release date for GTA 6 before confirming the launch windows of its upcoming slate of exclusives. Nobody wants to compete for attention in the same release window.
While others have expressed their concerns and worries about competing with the sequel to the second-best-selling video game of all time, Ubisoft, in its latest earnings call, is optimistic about the potential boost GTA 6 will bring to the entire video game industry.
As for Vermeij, it's unclear how long this interview will remain online. Late last year, Rockstar asked the OG developer to stop writing blog posts about his time as the studio's technical director. Given the secretive nature of Rockstar and how much Vermeij revealed in this interview, don't be surprised if Rockstar and Take-Two come politely knocking sooner rather than later.
