- Former Rockstar Games producer John Ricchio thinks Grand Theft Auto 6 will be "monstrous" in scale
- He says the developer tends to make every game bigger than the last
- However, he wouldn't want to work on the game because of how ambitious it is
Former Rockstar Games producer John Ricchio believes Grand Theft Auto 6 will be a massive game and is glad he isn't working on such an ambitious project.
In a new podcast interview with Kiwi Talkz, where the developer discussed his time at Rockstar and the crunch culture that came with the role, Ricchio was asked whether there was any part of him that wanted to work on GTA 6, or if thinking about the project stressed him.
"I think the fact that every single time they do a GTA, it's like ludicrously bigger than before is like something that I think about," Ricchio said. "I can only imagine the size of GTA 6. It must be monstrous, or if not monstrous, it's probably way more detailed."
GTA 6 will have a much larger Vice City map, allowing players to explore several regions of Leonida. There will also be a ton of open-world activities and features to access, including car shops, clothing stores, hairdressers, safehouses, as well as boats that players can take on the water.
The developer suggested that if Rockstar "kept the same footprint as GTA 5, which was significantly bigger than GTA 4, significantly bigger than RDR [Red Dead Redemption] and continued to build upon that framework, GTA 6 will be a massive game.
"Between RDR and GTA, I think they were continually growing the size of the world, which is a big deal, right?" he said. "It's a lot more stuff to build. It's a lot more performance to deal with. There are a lot of considerations with going with a bigger world, but it really does make you feel like you're in a place, right? It makes you feel like you're in a huge place."
For this reason, Ricchio jokingly added, he's "pretty happy" he's not working on the game.
"Not that it wouldn't be cool to work with those people. I still think about my Rockstar teams all the time," he said.
"It is really difficult, and it's a hard period of your career when you're working that hard on something, and getting to the end and then getting to have people be really excited about what you've done is just magic, it is so rewarding.
"I'll never forget some of the play with the public events for Max Payne or for RDR, and even GTA, we were involved in very specific pieces, but just having people so excited about what you've made or being a part of something. It is so incredible. It is such a good feeling to make something, to spend a lot of time [on something] and have people appreciate it."
Ricchio continued, saying if he was still at the studio and working on GTA 6, he wouldn't be "amenable" to how things operate currently, which would "probably lead to an exit for me."
"I've learned a lot about different ways that you can do things and different ways to build successful, kind of hard projects, and it doesn't require that way to do it on the backs of burning people out," the developer said. "Clearly it works, and they make games that do really well, and I expect GTA [6] to do really well even at the higher price point."
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