GTA 6 Has Over 600,000 Animations, Garbut Says

GTA 6 has over 600,000 animations, according to Rockstar North co-head Aaron Garbut. The executive also revealed that the studio created an entirely new team dedicated solely to NPCs. His comments were made to The New York Times and reported by PC Gamer.

Garbut said every NPC received individual art direction. According to him, the team considered who would occupy each room, where those people would sit, and even what they would be drinking. The process he described goes beyond filling spaces with random background characters.

That attention also extends to the environments occupied by those NPCs. Garbut mentioned marks left on tables and pictures on walls connected to the people in a room, including references to their families and tattoos. According to the Rockstar North co-head, those materials were created, photographed, and placed even inside random rooms across the game's large world.

The animation count helps put that work into perspective. Garbut said GTA 6 contains more than 600,000 animations, compared with 55,000 in GTA 5. Based on the figures presented by the source, the new game has more than ten times the total of its predecessor.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was also included in PC Gamer's comparison. According to the report, GTA 6 has twice as many animations as that game. The source additionally says GTA 6's map is three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2's, using those figures to illustrate the production's scale and level of detail.

For players, these numbers primarily raise expectations for greater visual variety across NPCs and interiors. A dedicated team could help everyday spaces feel constructed around their occupants rather than serving only as generic scenery. The statement does not explain, however, how the 600,000 animations are divided or how many a player might notice during an ordinary playthrough.

It also remains unclear how many developers belong to the new team, when it was formed, or how long it worked on the NPCs. Garbut did not provide a breakdown showing whether the count covers characters, objects, cutscenes, or other animation categories. The available source does not connect the figure to performance, platforms, pricing, or the release date either.

The number provides a concrete measure of Rockstar North's investment in GTA 6's details, but it cannot establish by itself how the game will play. What Garbut's comments confirm is the dedicated team's existence, the individual art direction applied to NPCs, and a total exceeding 600,000 animations. The information was published by PC Gamer based on Aaron Garbut's interview with The New York Times.