Take-Two CEO Reveals What Role Generative AI Has In Developing GTA 6

The hype for Grand Theft Auto VI continues unabated, as publisher Take-Two Interactive shares that GTA 6 is still on track for a November release. As monumental as this game's release is likely to be, however, it still can’t escape the discourse of AI in game development. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke about the role the technology played during the development of its most important IP.

Zelnick was adamant that generative AI played no role in the creation of GTA 6, because developer Rockstar’s games are all handcrafted pieces of entertainment. “That's what differentiates them. They're built from the ground up, building by building, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. They're not procedurally generated, they shouldn't be.”


GTA6 has been in development for several years--well before AI began to proliferate as a tool for content creation and software development. It wouldn’t make sense trying to incorporate new tools that the development team would’ve had to adjust to in the middle of the creating something as complex as GTA, especially with the potential controversy surrounding them.

Although it does seem as if AI will be deployed in games moving forward. Zelnick says that “right now we have hundreds of pilots and implementations across our company, including within our studios. And we're already seeing instances where generative AI tools are driving costs and time efficiencies." He would add that machine learning and AI have always been used in building the company’s products.

Gamers who don’t want to be subjected to AI slop should be heartened that Zelnick doesn’t believe that AI will replace humans in game development. He firmly believes that it’s meant to be used for behind the scenes tooling as assistance, and not as the main driver of the creative process.