The next edition of GTA may be a long way off, but some new information has come to light regarding new patents that appear to be related to Rockstar Games.
A Twitter user Big Jim Colosimo discovered some new patents published by Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games related to virtual environments and a new session management system for online titles.
Virtual environments – what does this mean?
What this means in particular, the virtual environment patent indicates a new form of navmesh generated for NPCs (it controls where NPCs can go) and it may appear that artificial intelligence can also play a role in the next title, so there’s more prominent chance that Rockstar could leverage dedicated servers instead of using localized hardware.
This would also benefit consoles, since most of the AI would be handled on the servers, so if this is implemented in the next title, Rockstar should be able to take the game even further than AI, so it will not be pushed to behind for any hardware limitations.
With that in mind, the next game goes all-in with an advanced AI system (again) for NPCs, as we saw the same way with Red Dead Redemption II (2018) that introduced daily routines and improvements, which was a big step compared to GTA V of 2013.
Session management – what is it?
Being alone in the next GTA Online title can be even more difficult with a new patent that demonstrates that there may be a new system that merges sessions without any action on the player.
This technology is already used to some extent in Red Dead Online but this patent shows that it can be further advanced to fill the sessions as much as possible. This feature can also eliminate some loading screens if a player wants to join a friend’s session, as the game alternates between sessions perfectly, as nothing happens. Or if a player is kicked out of an online session, the game will seamlessly enter player X in a different session without any effect or loading screen.
For now, consider all of this information carefully. Often, companies can publish patents without some things being presented in a final product.