GTA 6 could feature much more random and intelligent NPC behavior

Grand Theft Auto 6 might not officially exist just yet, but it’s only a matter of time before Rockstar games lifts the lid on its incredibly lucrative franchise and gets the hype-ball rolling down the hill. Each GTA game has been a showcase of some pretty impressive technology over the years, and a new patent filed by the Take-Two Interactive, parent company of Rockstar, hints at improving the artificial intelligence within its games by a significant margin.

The patent that was spotted by reddit, is of a “system and method for virtual navigation in a gaming environment” and dates back to October 2020. According to the documents, “conventional systems only provide limited resources” for developers seeking to add active elements to their games, which boils down to every object in motion within a game. Think a pedestrian milling about on the street, a car taking a certain route or a plane flying over you.

Every single one of these elements runs on a specific script, and only a certain number of scripts can be active at any given time, all resulting in a uniform selection of behavior, speed, and responses. Rockstar wants to change these “deficient” systems and instead produce “a realistic virtual world that is not limited by hardware or software limitations.”

The patent that has  Rockstar North tech director David Hynd and AI lead Simon Parr listed as its creators, suggests at giving NPCs different personalities that alters their behavior and creates more random actions for it to take, which could be anything from an arrogant driver putting their foot on accelerator harder or a more impatient motorist may use the suburbs to cut around rush hour traffic. None of this new technology explicitly refers to GTA 6 mind you, but references to a “high-speed chase”, “ambient traffic” and so on likely refers to a game set in a more modern sandbox world.

It probably won’t be seen in Rockstar Table Tennis 2, a pipe dream for the ages.

GTA 6 won’t be here anytime soon. According to recent rumours, it’ll be returning to the sunny shores of Vice City and it’ll arrive in 2023. Rockstar doesn’t have anything to worry about though, as it can take as much time as it wants on the sequel thanks to GTA 5’s online multiplayer still being a wildly successful spin-off that brings in obscene amounts of cash every month.

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