So you don’t really have that technology jump to make things different and better.
I don’t think we can ever see a jump like that again."
Again, Vermeij is impressed by what he’s glimpsed of GTA 6 nonetheless.
“Every character has got their own animation.
I think that looks pretty amazing.
But I don’t think it is going to be wildly different from GTA 5.
I think maybe people might be a little disappointed.
But it’s still going to be the best game out there.”
“We had a lot of time to do that one, like three years,” Vermeij recalled.
“And we went crazy in all the features, like stupidly.
We were like stealth and skydiving and all these bikes, articulated lorries - it was just ridiculous.
And of course, the three cities.
And then at the end of that, we thought ‘OK that was dumb’.
Because we didn’t have to do it.
We could do half of it and it would still be very good.
So that’s why we cut down the features on purpose.
So that we could actually make it a much more polished, much more beautiful game.
And then worry about the additional features later on.”
All that notwithstanding, Vermeij prefers the preceding games for their more openly comedic tone.
“I really enjoyed them.
So when I decided to leave after GTA 4, it was like a number of things.
One of them was like, my wife’s Canadian and she wanted to move back to Canada.
But also, I thought GTA 4 wasn’t as good and as fun as the games before.
And I thought that the next one was going to be like, even darker.
I’m happy to see that I was wrong.
GTA 5 is a lot more lighthearted than GTA 4.
So I got that wrong.”
“And, you know, they didn’t do that well either.
So I think it was the right move to make it more serious.
But at the same time, I sort of miss the old games still.”
“I love the Miami vibe.
So yeah, it’s going to be a good game for sure.”
This isn’t the first time Vermeij has held forth on all things GTA.
He still puts out the odd development titbit onXitter.
