Ex-Rockstar dev explains why GTA 7 will be cheaper to make than GTA 6
A former GTA developer believes GTA 7 will cost a lot less to make than GTA 6 and explained how AI will be used to make development much easier.
GTA 6is slated to release on August 14, 2025, and as fans anxiously await for more information to come out about the open world title, one dev is already thinking about Grand Theft Auto VII.
Obbe Vermeij is a former technical director at Rockstar who recently spoke withYouTuber KiwiTalkzfor an interview, where they touched on his time at the company and what the future of game development will be like.
Vermeij believes that GTA 6 will remain the most expensive game to make of all time, and a big reason why is due to howAIwill make things easier in the future.
Former Rockstar dev predicts how GTA 7 will be made with AI
According to Vermeij, artists who are building massive maps and cut scenes will be “taken over by AI” within the next five years or so.
“My prediction is GTA 7 will be cheaper to make than GTA 6,” he added. “We’ll have to wait 15 years to see if I’m right or not.”
Vermeij, who left Rockstar afterGTA IV, says that art and animation is the biggest cost when it comes to game design and that AI allows for certain things to be generated far quicker.
“Say you do a cut scene. All the characters in the cut scene could just be rendered by an AI, including the conversation, if you just describe the scene. That could be your first pass at a cut scene,” he explained, but noted that there will still be jobs that can only be done by humans.
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“You still have artists do tons of higher level creative stuff and there will be glitches to fix and all that stuff. But I think the bulk of the work is probably going to be replaced.”
For programmers like Vermeij, he says AI replacement has already been happening over the years, saying that things such a physics and collision detection is being removed from the individual and are just part of the engine.
“When I started, programmers were like a third of a typical team and now it’s maybe 10, 15%. And with AI, even more work will be automated.”
Vermeij hopes that the advancement of AI will result in more high-quality games being made with niche topics, such as random battle from the 1800s, the life ofAlbert Einstein, or exploring space.
“If you can make games cheaper, you can have more niche settings and I think that would be much more interesting for gamers,” he said. “I don’t think AI will be doing the creative part. You’re still gonna have artists setting the style and the look, and you’re still gonna have writers writing the story. I don’t think AI can do that.”
