Will GTA ever leave America? 'Never say never,' says Rockstar's Rob Nelson

Rockstar Games hasn't ruled out a Grand Theft Auto set outside the United States. Asked by the Guardian whether Rockstar could ever see a GTA somewhere else, Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, said: "Never say never, but there's still so much to do in America."

He said it while showing the Guardian's Keza MacDonald around Vice City at Rockstar North in Edinburgh a few weeks ago, a visit she wrote up on Nov. 11, eight days before Grand Theft Auto VI comes out. Nelson and Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar's head of publishing, also talked about the research trips behind the game, and Nelson showed off some of its smallest details. A longer piece is due in the Guardian's Saturday magazine this week.

No new GTA announced

Nelson wasn't announcing anything. Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive haven't named a game after GTA 6. On Take-Two's earnings call on Nov. 9, chief executive Strauss Zelnick said Rockstar would turn to what comes next after launch and announce it when it's ready, GamingBolt reported, and that the pace of Grand Theft Auto would look dramatically different over the next decade, as our story on his comments reports.

MacDonald also asked whether being based mostly outside the US, with offices in New York and San Diego as well, gives the team a different view of the country. Nelson said everyone is an outsider to the America the games portray, wherever they live, because no one experiences all of it.

The research, from 2015

Rockstar's first research trips to Miami for GTA 6 were in 2015, the Guardian says, which matches what Rockstar's leaders told Bloomberg; our guide to how long GTA 6 took to make has the timeline. Rockstar starts every game with the setting, the Guardian explains: the team soaks up the real place first, and the story and characters come later.

Before the organized trips, Nelson said, the team takes in a place's history and feel, the spots they want to move characters through and the gap between Miami's extremes. Some of what he described:

• A night out, at a Miami nightclub until 4 a.m., then a drive around a racetrack a few hours later, with a hangover.
• A ride-along with police in South Beach.
• Bars in the Florida Keys, which he called weird. Leonida's version of the Keys is the Leonida Keys.
• Artists with cameras, who wander into all sorts of places.

The team tries to stay semi-undercover, he said, though a group of game developers stands out in a rough neighborhood. Kolbe described the same approach on GTA IV, set in the New York-inspired Liberty City: during its research, people who had lived in New York all their lives went to places they'd never otherwise go, and the team then gave that experience to players.

The details Nelson showed

MacDonald describes the game as absurdly detailed, down to what pedestrians wear, the street art, the flyers on cafe walls and what's inside fridges. In the demo:

• Jason ate a hot dog, and as he walked around a gas station he could take bites of a donut in one hand while drinking a beer from the other.
• When Jason started running, he moved the six-pack of beer he was carrying into the crook of his arm, and the beer sloshed in the bottles.
• During a jewelry store robbery, Nelson got briefly annoyed because one security guard's feet weren't placed right.

Nelson's own area, the Guardian says, is design, narrative and animation, with some casting, and his background is in character art and animation. The game is too big for any one person to hold in their head, he said, so each lead takes charge of the parts that suit them.

Almost 5,000 people

GTA 6 was made by almost 5,000 people, the Guardian says, but the decisions rest with a small group of leads, most of whom have been at Rockstar for a long time. The lead writer, Rupert Humphries, has been there since 2008. Bloomberg puts Rockstar's staff at 4,711 people across 12 offices; our guide to who makes GTA 6 has the people who have talked about it.

Nelson has talked about GTA 6 before: in July he played it for IGN, as our story on that interview reports, and Rockstar North's demo for Edge is in our story on its cover feature. Our Vice City guide has every place Rockstar has shown in the city.