Rockstar wants to keep things varied but will stick to a core structure

Sep 19, 2013 16:11 GMT  ·  By

Grand Theft Auto 5, the recently released title from Rockstar Games, has quite a few structured missions, in which players need to go to a place, do something, and then come back, largely because it feels like a real-life job and the game is trying to emulate that feeling, according to the developer.

Grand Theft Auto games and practically all open world titles have been criticized from time to time for their bland mission structure, as they constantly send players to do various errands and then come back with certain items, results, or something else.

These sort of structured missions, however, work well in an open world title because it makes it feel like real life, at least according to the Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games, who talked with The Guardian.

"We've thought long and hard about it, but the reality is, structured missions – being given a task and completing a task – they feel like life. In a game, when you're doing missions you're doing a job, and in the open world you do what you want. To us that's the best way to replicate the structure, and the lack of structure, of life. I don't see the benefit of throwing that away."

Even if these missions are good in the open world context, the trick is to keep things from becoming too bland or predictable, according to Houser, who wants to give more freedom to players.

"The trick is not making it feel too mannered and predictable and hopefully we've broken that up. I think players like the combination: things they're told what to do, tasks where they're not told what to do but know they have to achieve something specific, and things where they're able to explore for themselves. We try to give you all of those in a variety of different ways."

Grand Theft Auto 5 is currently available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.