One of the hardest pills to swallow when it comes to the video game industry is that the idea you have in your head for the “perfect game” may not actually be made. The reason for that is many-fold. First, you might not be in a position within a company to pitch it. Second, you might not have the money or team to try to make it on your own. And third, and arguably most importantly, even if you did have the first two locked down, you might not have the tech and ability to make it. GTA 6 is shaping up to be an incredibly stunning title just from the visual perspective, but some fans are wondering what Rockstar Games could do if they didn’t have any limits put on them.
This happened on Reddit, where one poster wondered aloud what Rockstar could do if hardware limitations weren’t an issue. It is an interesting question, as you could speculate all sorts of things about what they would make. If they didn’t have to worry about the hardware holding them down, they could make a game like GTA 6, but with a city that truly feels alive.
For example, we know that Vice City will have plenty of NPCs, but they’ll act like most NPCs and either not interact with you or you’ll keep seeing the same ones popping up repeatedly, etc. The team could also implement incredibly detailed weather systems, lighting that is as realistic as possible, and so on.
Or, they could go off in another direction and make a game that they’ve been thinking about in another genre, and then see how successful they can make that. While many on the Reddit thread did speculate about the potential Rockstar Games title with “no restrictions,” one person did rightfully bring things back down to Earth with:
“And a development time of approximately 2 millennia.”
Yeah, just because you don’t have any restrictions in hardware doesn’t mean the game will get done faster. In fact, it arguably would get done even SLOWER. Why? Because the game will have no limits on what you can add to it, and as a result, you’ll need more time to test things, ensure it all goes smoothly, and so on.
That goes double when you think about the “lifelike graphics” they’d want to include in it, more than likely.
And as another Redditor put it, you could put this “thought experiment” on any game developer, and the answers would likely be the same.
