GTA 6 fans are praising Rockstar for taking a different approach to game development.

While generative AI is becoming more common across the gaming industry, Rockstar has reportedly confirmed that it did not use generative AI to create GTA 6.

Instead, the studio has spent years building the game’s characters, animations and world with its own artists and developers.

One of the biggest examples is the game’s huge animation system. GTA 6 reportedly has more than 600,000 animations, giving Jason, Lucia and the many NPCs across Leonida a much wider range of movements and reactions.

That number is especially impressive when compared with Rockstar’s previous games.

GTA 5 had around 55,000 animations, while Red Dead Redemption 2 had around 300,000. GTA 6 is reportedly going far beyond both games.

Rockstar’s focus on animations is also one of the reasons the characters in the recent gameplay footage look so natural.

NPCs can move differently, react to situations around them and perform everyday actions that make them feel less like background characters.

The studio has also reportedly put a lot of work into the small details of individual NPCs.

Characters can have different clothes, appearances and behaviors depending on where they live and what they are doing.

Even some of their homes contain personal items such as furniture, objects and family photos.

These details may seem small, but they help make GTA 6’s open world feel like a real place.

The generative AI part of the story has attracted even more attention from fans.

Rockstar reportedly confirmed during a recent preview that GTA 6 does not use generative AI.

This does not mean the game has no AI. NPCs still use traditional game AI to react to players, traffic, police and other events.

The difference is that Rockstar is reportedly not using generative AI to create the game’s art, animations or other content.

For many GTA fans, that is a welcome decision.

Generative AI has become a major topic in gaming, with some studios using it to help create content faster.

Rockstar appears to have taken the opposite approach with GTA 6, continuing to rely heavily on human artists and animators.

That approach has also taken a huge amount of time.

GTA 6 has been in development for many years, and Rockstar has clearly spent a large part of that time working on the tiny details that players may not even notice during their first few hours with the game.

The recent gameplay footage has already shown some of the results.

NPCs react to different situations, characters have unique movements, and the world is filled with small interactions.

Even simple actions can have different animations depending on what is happening around the player.

This is also why the 600,000 animations in GTA 6 have become such a big talking point.

Rockstar isn’t simply making a bigger map. It is trying to make the people living inside that map feel more believable.

The decision to avoid generative AI could make GTA 6 even more interesting from a development point of view.

At a time when the technology is quickly becoming part of the gaming industry, Rockstar is showing what can still be achieved by putting a huge amount of work into traditional game development.

Of course, Rockstar still uses AI systems in the normal way video games do. Police officers, pedestrians, animals and other characters need game AI to decide how they react to the player.

The important point is the reported decision not to use generative AI to create the game’s content.

After more than a decade of waiting, Rockstar seems to be putting an incredible amount of work into GTA 6.

And if the final game lives up to what Rockstar has shown so far, the huge number of animations and carefully designed NPCs could be a big reason why GTA 6’s world feels so much more alive than previous GTA games.