GTA 6 development is apparently slow-moving due to Rockstar Games’ culture reform, which is working towards becoming a “kinder, more progressive company,” a recent Bloomberg report has uncovered.It’s been a decade since Grand Theft Auto V launched, and while Rockstar has said that development on GTA 6 is “well underway,” a recent report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier says that a number of people close to the project, or that have recently left the company, have said that Rockstar’s refocussed culture has slowed development. The game will also feature a female protagonist for the first time in the series’ history.Rockstar is working towards being a “kinder and more progressive company”The Grand Theft Auto series has always poked fun at many elements of society that were most prominent at the time of each game’s development, and while it’s earned Rockstar a reputation as a studio unafraid to push the boundaries, it was uncovered back in 2018 that the same attitude was applied to its workplace culture. Hundreds of reports began to surface about crunching, partying, regular strip club visits, and seven-day work weeks. Instead of covering it up or offering measly payouts, it looks like Rockstar instead decided to reinvent itself for the better. Bloomberg reports that changes to the company have come in the way of decreasing the gender pay gap, the conversion of contractors into full-time employees, mental health and leave benefits, the promise of no more excessive overtime, better scheduling, the removal of several toxic managers, and more. The company even implemented a system called ‘flexitime,’ which allows staff to immediately take time off for every extra hour they work.”A boys club transformed into a real company,” is what one of 20 anonymous sources recently told Bloomberg, and while the company is striving to improve the working conditions for its staff and has indeed raised the overall morale, some of the team aren’t sure what a new GTA would look like in today’s world from a more caring developer. Several apparently noted “that you can’t really satirize today’s America — it’s already a satire of itself,” and with the creative direction of Dan Houser having left the company in 2019, it’s beginning to sound like the upcoming game could be a very different experience to that which we’ve seen before. We’ve already seen some of the more considerate design decisions feature in GTA V, which saw the removal of transphobic jokes from its Xbox Series X|S and PS5 versions. According to reports, Rockstar had a GTA Online mode in development called Cops ‘n’ Crooks, which was a more violent approach to the Cops ‘n’ Robbers game you might remember playing as kids — a team of cops hunts down the bad guys. According to Bloomberg’s sources, Rockstar shelved the mode after mistrust of American police was heightened in 2020 when a police officer killed George Floyd and still doesn’t plan on bringing it back. In fact, Rockstar apparently matched employee donations to Black Lives Matter charities during this time. The new company attitude, mixed with the conditions caused by the pandemic, is said to have slowed the development of GTA 6. In a bid to limit the need for overtime, Rockstar has apparently put in place a new management structure and more producers, which has created bottlenecks and a situation that some describe as “too many cooks.”GTA 6 was reportedly going to feature territories modelled after large parts of North and South America, but will now only be a fictional version of Miami and its surrounding areas. The idea is to limit overwork but to continuously update the game over its lifetime to add new missions and cities. Bloomberg does state that the game’s world is still large and features “more interior locations than previous Grand Theft Auto games, impacting the timeline.”While some industry analysts have predicted GTA 6’s launch to happen sometime around Take-Two’s 2024 fiscal year, some of the game’s developers remain sceptical, with some noting that they’re unaware of any fixed release date, even though the game has been in some form of development since 2014, and that the game is still at least two years away. While many developers are happy with the newly reformed Rockstar, others haven’t been so receptive, with a handful of developers apparently having walked out earlier this year after telling their colleagues “they were sick of the lack of progress.”We’d love to know your thoughts and expectations on Rockstar’s upcoming GTA title. Do you think we could be in for something very different to what we’re used to, or will the developer continue to push boundaries? Let us know down below!
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