The wait for GTA 6 has been long and hard, but it is finally coming to an end. With pre-orders opening next week ahead of the game's November 19 release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games are sure to ramp up marketing, and finally show more of a game set to be one of the most successful ever released. However, a solo developer has had enough, and has spent the past 12 or so days trying to build their own version of the game using AI, and the results are impressive and hilarious at the same time.
As reported by TweakTown, Ziwen Xu, founder of AI agent startup Hyperecho, started working building GTA 6 using AI agents back on June 10, starting development on the Godot engine. Progress of the GT-Caliber project was incredibly fast, as by day 3, the AI agents implemented multiple community feature requests, having NPCs walking around, cars on the road, shadows and reflections working correctly. However, things started going wrong almost immediately: right from Day 2, the AI agents started building the wrong city, recreating Los Angeles instead of Miami, which is the real-world inspiration for Vice City.
This AI version of GTA 6 also met a few other snags on the road. On Day 7, Ziwen Xu swapped the engine from Godot to Unreal Engine 5, while on Day 8, the developer's Mac died because every agent open the game at once to screenshot it. Still, progress continued: while NPCs lost their walking animations, the AI agents created an in-game phone with maps, contacts and a wallet.
In a strange twist of fate, Rockstar Games announced the opening of GTA 6' preorders right as development of this project reached Day 9, and hit another small snag. While the map is now set and getting iterated upon, Ziwen Xu attempted to move the project to the recently released Unreal Engine 5.8 to take advantage of its Model Context Protocol, and the results weren't great, and actually slowed the project down.
"The 5.8 MCP isn't like crazy good, and it actually slows the build down. Chasing the newest version felt like the obvious move. It wasn't. The loop runs better without it," the developer said.
While this project is definitely fascinating, it once more confirms that AI, by itself, is nowhere near capable of developing a game like GTA 6. This is something that Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is well aware of, as he believes the lack of creativity would prevent the creation of games on par with the Rockstar Games series, even if it were possible for a huge open-world game to be built autonomously by AI.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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