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GTA 6 NPCs Will Use 600,000 Animations and Individual Traits

A Los Angeles team art-directed the pedestrians, whose responses can reflect temperament, aggression, location, what they have witnessed, and player behavior.

Mihaela Kicevski51 seconds ago

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Several bikers ride past storefronts on a street in Grand Theft Auto VI.

Grand Theft Auto VI‘s crowds are being built around individual behavior, not just sheer volume. Rockstar has created roughly 600,000 animations for NPCs, and Leonida’s pedestrians will have personality traits that can affect how they respond to players.

A Los Angeles team worked on the NPCs, art-directing each one before creating the animation library. The goal was to give people in the crowd more individual character instead of relying entirely on procedural generation to fill the streets.

In Edge issue 430, Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson described the team considering which NPCs might become aggressive, reach for a weapon, or challenge the player. Temperament, aggression, location, what a character has witnessed, and the player’s behavior can all affect the response.

One encounter puts that system into action. After Jason stares too long at a dog walker, the man squares up to him and unclips an Alsatian’s leash. The dog chases Jason, then gives up and returns to its owner, as described in an Edge feature.

Some NPCs may try to disarm an armed player, while others retreat or show fear, as described in an earlier preview of GTA 6 NPC reactions. Personality traits give those different responses an individual basis rather than making every nearby person react in the same way.

Which NPC response are you most curious to see play out in Leonida? For more on the crowd systems behind those reactions, keep up with us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.

Grand Theft Auto VI heads to the state of Leonida, home to the neon-soaked streets of Vice City and beyond in the biggest, most immersive evolution of the Grand Theft Auto series yet.