I'm in my fifties and far too old to use youth slang. But even I've come to realise that in recent years, the kids have started using "NPC", aka non-player character, as a term of ridicule for people in real life.
That makes sense, because typically in video games, the people who walk past you on the street are visual wallpaper. They give the impression that other humans are around, but they have no individuality.
This is exactly why the 2021 film Free Guy, in which Ryan Reynolds lives a repetitive, meaningless existence in a video game world, worked so well. We were all already in on the joke.
But now comes Grand Theft Auto 6, and its makers, Rockstar Games, are about to blow the concept of non-player characters right open.
Beyond the algorithm
In a cover feature for Edge, Creative Bloq's sister print magazine, the studio reveals it art-directed every one of the game’s NPCs, creating around 600,000 animations in the process.
Normally, procedural systems assemble background NPCs, making them largely interchangeable. Grand Theft Auto VI's non-player characters, however, will have their own personalities. Which means any Free Guy sequel (long mooted, but never confirmed) may have to rethink its premise entirely.
According to the Edge article, Rockstar set up a dedicated LA-based team of writers, directors and producers whose job was to make the pedestrians of Leonida, the game’s fictional take on Florida, feel individually realised.
In practice, this means NPCs have personality traits that shape how they react to you. These include their temperament and aggression, where they are, what they’ve seen and how you’ve treated them. Different districts even have their own demographic and professional mix.
Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, describes a process of constantly asking how people might behave. “Who’s going to be aggressive? How many people will go for a weapon? How many are going to test me?”
Why creatives should care
Not only is this making me even more excited to play the game – even more excited than this brilliant GTA/South Park tie-in or these saucy GTA ads – it also says a lot about where we are as a culture. At a time when much of the creative industry is looking for faster, cheaper ways to fill digital worlds, Rockstar has done the opposite. And the rewards, I feel, will be immense.
We all talk endlessly about games being "immersive". But a city doesn’t feel real because of its landmarks. It feels real because of the passer-by who takes offence to something at precisely the wrong moment.
As D&AD’s AI & Creativity Report put it this year, AI has raised the floor, but not the ceiling. GTA 6 looks like an attempt to raise the ceiling the hard way, and I simply can't wait.
