rob nelson says gta 6 wasn't fully formed when trailer 1 dropped

Caught this interview with Rob Nelson from Rockstar North and it's got some cool behind the scenes stuff about how they made the first trailer. He basically said the game wasn't fully formed back in December 2023 when that trailer hit. The Tom Petty song, Love is a Long Road, was like a mission statement for the team. They had an idea of what the game was gonna be but they had to push hard to actually pull it together. The trailer became a guiding light for the feel they wanted.

What I found more interesting is the part about them going to Miami. Once they decided Vice City was the setting, a handful of devs just went down there on their own, drove around, took a ton of pictures, soaked it all up. No big production, just feeling the place out and sharing ideas about what to incorporate. That's the kind of thing that makes me trust Rockstar's world building. They don't just look at Google Maps, they actually go stand in the humidity.

Also in the article, SensorTower is saying GTA 6 has already sold 5 million copies through preorders, over $500 million in revenue. That's before the game even launches. And the GTA 6 DualSense controller goes on sale September 10 at 7 AM PT for $85. I'm not usually a controller collector but that one might get me.

Anyway, the whole "not fully formed" thing makes sense. Trailer 1 was more of a tone piece than a gameplay showcase. They were still figuring out what the game actually was. Now with the extended look we got last month, you can see how far it's come. I'm just glad they took their time instead of rushing it out after that first trailer hype.

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Source: GameSpot · Curated content.

The Miami trip part is what got me too, but for a different reason. I keep wondering how much of that field trip stuff turns into actual systems. Like, does standing in that humidity translate into how NPCs behave in the heat, or how storms roll in off the water around Grassrivers? Probably reading too much into it, but Rockstar's ambient AI has always felt like it came from somebody actually watching people, not just pulling reference photos.

The "not fully formed" bit also makes me curious about the tech side. If trailer 1 was a tone piece, I'm guessing a bunch of those shots ran on placeholder physics or scripted moments that got rebuilt later. Might be wrong, but I'd love a side by side once we're all playing. Wonder if any trailer 1 quirks survive into the final build.