A major Grand Theft Auto release is these days rare (in fact, a new game from R* is rare). R* truly pushes the boundaries and gets the most out of the generatio

A major Grand Theft Auto release is these days rare (in fact, a new game from R* is rare). R* truly pushes the boundaries and gets the most out of the generation of console platforms it is running on. The incredible attention to detail is frankly astonishing if you compare it to other games. Each installment brings something new not only to the franchise, but also to gaming in general. E.g., GTA 4 brought Bullet physics with Euphoria's natural motion engine in action in 2008. The latter wasn't just a tool/library they can simply import into the engine: it had to be customized and blended into the game engine itself (engineers from the company behind Euphoria were brought in-house to integrate it). In addition, the amazing dynamic vehicle damage.. It was way ahead of its time [1]. AFAIK, they hire quite a lot of PhDs in comparison to other game companies, likely because they care about research/innovation, and (of course) can afford it too. Whenever you have time, have a look at one of their GDC talks [2] [3]. Even the in-house tooling is quite advanced. [1] How vehicle damage was implemented (Erwin Coumans, creator of Bullet physics who also helped R* develop the physics of GTA, shared this email from R* North): https://pybullet.org/Bullet/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=16852#p16852 https://pybullet.org/Bullet/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=16852#p16... [2] "The Sound of Grand Theft Auto V": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4GuM15QOFE&ab_channel=GDC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4GuM15QOFE&ab_channel=GDC [3] "Environment Design as Spatial Cinematography: Theory and Practice": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L27Qb20AYmc&ab_channel=GDC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L27Qb20AYmc&ab_channel=GDC