Grand Theft Auto 4‘s NPCs had a more realistic existence during development, but the plans ended up being completely scrapped by the time the game released. While some GTA 4 fans might find the idea intriguing, unfortunately, there were a number of issues that prevented the feature from being implemented.
Though Grand Theft Auto 4 was popular upon release, it didn’t achieve the same sales numbers as its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. San Andreas introduced several unique features for the first time, like fairly robust character customization for the era. A number of these features didn’t return in GTA 4, which some fans were upset about at the time. This new bit of information indicates that there were big plans for GTA 4‘s features, but at least one of them fell through.
Grand Theft Auto 4 NPCs Used To Be More Believable
Now, Grand Theft Auto 4 programmer Obbe Vermeij has revealed to Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar) that at one point, Grand Theft Auto 4 was going to have more realistic NPCs. According to Vermeij, GTA 4 producer Leslie Benzies wanted NPCs to have full lives, with schedules that they followed, homes they belonged to, and even real-life behavior like driving to work in the morning. Vermeij says that the development team worked on the goal for a while, but that it ended up “being so problematic,” and created lots of bugs. Vermeij added that he personally didn’t like the idea of the NPCs being more realistic, because “it didn’t really matter that much,” and added that he believes “players are fine with NPCs being a little fake” and with a lack of true-to-life realism.
Drag weapons to fill the grid
Drag weapons to fill the grid
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Though NPCs schedules and more realism in their behavior might have been interesting, it’s also understandable that it may not have meant much to players. A lot of GTA fans enjoy the games not only for their stories, but for the opportunity to drive, rampage, and do crime. NPCs having schedules may have been largely overlooked by a lot of gamers, or it may have caused headaches for players who were tasked with finding specific NPCs for a mission. Ultimately, it was probably too much for the hardware of the era to cope with on top of GTA 4‘s open world and frenetic action.
Fans of the open world genre may recall that The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which released two years prior to GTA 4, included set schedules for its NPCs. The detail certainly added a lot of realism, as players had to be mindful of the time of day when looking for people or going to shops run by NPCs. However, it also created considerable headaches, especially when it didn’t work correctly. Waiting for time to pass, for example, often led to NPCs not following their schedules correctly, and could sometimes cause problems like shops not opening or closing as expected depending on the shopkeeper’s off-schedule location.
Realism in games is a fine line to walk, with some realism creating more memorable gameplay, but an excessive amount making games a pain to play. A former Rockstar Games developer recently said that they wouldn’t be surprised to see GTA 6 delayed if it had bugs left to iron out, so it’s not entirely surprising that Rockstar opted to take out the troublesome element in GTA 4 rather than risk shipping a buggy game.
- Released
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April 29, 2008
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol