GTA 6 Interactive City Design Could Transform Open-World Gaming Experience

Rockstar has said hundreds of interiors will be open to explore, and after the extended look, the GTA 6 interiors could be one of the biggest improvements the series has ever seen. The studio isn't hiding it, either; it sat right at the front of what was shown.

You may have seen the figure 700 floating around, but that came from a leak a long time ago, and nobody has confirmed it. There is no official count and no official share of buildings you can walk into. What has been said directly is that the total will run into the hundreds. For comparison, Grand Theft Auto 5 launched with roughly 100 interiors, so even a cautious reading of hundreds makes GTA 6 interiors a clear step up.

The extended look showed plenty of small independent stores and local shops you can walk into and rob.

Don't expect huge, elaborate recreations like the castle in Hogwarts Legacy, though. These are small spaces, and that fits the way you move through the real world, ducking into a shop to buy something. It's a sensible direction for the GTA 6 interiors, since it keeps the focus on places you'd actually want to visit.

From what's been shown of the GTA 6 interiors, you'll likely be able to pick up a can of beans the way you could in Red Dead Redemption 2, look it over, turn it around in your hands, and pay for it at the counter. You can have a calm shopping trip, or you can rob the place, and both look fully supported.

The story side opens up too. Picture Jason and Lucia heading out on dates, choosing a restaurant the way you could in San Andreas and actually going inside. It would also bring back things from older games. Bars are the clearest case: Grand Theft Auto 4 kept them closed, while San Andreas let you walk right in. Jason and Lucia are a couple, so they can kiss, hold hands, spend time together, and head to the gym.

The GTA 6 interiors also appear to include gyms and fight clubs. An insider reported seeing Jason doing squats while Lucia was on a treadmill. That's secondhand, since it isn't something you can spot in the footage yourself, but the insider has clearly seen more than most.

There's also a bank that Jason and Lucia scope out before deciding against robbing it, because security is too heavy.

At a gas station, they take a different route: they slip into a back office, switch off an alarm, and take the cash without drawing any attention to themselves. Each of these situations can be handled in more than one way. That shows how the open world lets you weigh every opportunity and decide whether it's worth the risk.

It would be even better if Rockstar made these moments more dangerous, because that puts you directly in the criminals' shoes. You'd have to judge whether the payout justifies going up against ten guys in tactical armor, on high alert, with cameras watching. That kind of tension is what makes the GTA 6 interiors worth caring about.

On their own, extra interiors, store robberies, and surveillance cameras can look like minor additions. Together, they change a lot. Together, they create a gameplay experience that is far more involved and immersive than before. It's the same thing Rockstar tried to build with Red Dead Redemption 2, which mostly pulled it off in its Wild West setting, even if some players found it tedious.

You can go in loud or go in smart. In the GTA 6 interiors, cameras and related security open up sandbox gameplay on a level we haven't seen before. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had elements of this with its surveillance and infiltration. In Grand Theft Auto 5, you could rob a convenience store, but it was simple and bare-bones, even if it felt fun at first because it was something we couldn't do before.

Now all of these systems are mixing.

Take helping a man on horseback in Red Dead Redemption 2: you deal with the law enforcement officers, and the stranger tells you about an illegal racket run through a local gunsmith that you can then look into. Expect many more events like that, arising naturally from how you interact with your surroundings. A massive open world means little if there's nothing to do in it, and that was one of the biggest problems with Grand Theft Auto 5.

Some worlds do work better when sparse. Shadow of the Colossus is a huge, sprawling place with nothing traditional to do, built that way on purpose to evoke isolation through clear artistic direction. These days, most studios default to the Ubisoft approach instead, covering the map in icons that send you off to repeat the same tasks. Hogwarts Legacy does this too.

If you enjoy collectible hunting, it turns into its own mini challenge game. You can end up racing friends through an overwhelming number of little challenges before realizing you aren't having fun, even if the game is great outside of some story issues.

Ever since the genre took off, most open world games have leaned into that checklist formula. Exceptions exist, and the studio behind this series is one of them. Even when parts of Grand Theft Auto 5 felt barebones, it still aimed for deep immersion, and Red Dead Redemption 2 remains the high point of what an open world can achieve.

Looking back at 2011, Skyrim relied heavily on repetitive fetch quests.

The Witcher 3 broke that mold with meaningful side content, and Baldur's Gate 3 did something similar, as did Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk 2077 is interesting because the map looks like a Ubisoft checklist with side gigs everywhere, but once you play them, each gig is distinct, scripted, and worth your time.

If you skipped those side jobs thinking they were filler, you missed out. They have strong scripted moments and a lot of detail. Clear the opening district twice, as some players have, and you may be pleasantly surprised both times by the care Cyberpunk 2077 put into its world.

The GTA 6 interiors are attempting something on that scale, and bigger. Everyone grew up dreaming of a day when every building in a game could be entered, but with maps as big as they are now, opening every single door doesn't make sense.

Remake the 2002 Vice City map today and full interior access would be technically feasible at that scale. At this game's size, though, there's little reason to step into every nondescript room. Letting you enter the places you'd naturally want to visit is enough.

The fifth game had some accessible interiors, but you couldn't walk into a Burger Shot, and it lacked grounded immersion because basic, everyday buildings stayed shut in a way they hadn't in Grand Theft Auto 4. There you could enter diners, clothing stores, and various hangouts.

You could visit clothing stores in GTA 5 too, but on a bigger map, there seemed to be far less to step inside.

Think back, and you mostly picture empty highways with barely any interior life, while Grand Theft Auto 4 felt packed with places to go. The last time players visited Vice City, there were only around twenty enterable interiors. It has come a long way since, though the original Vice City interiors were spot-on, beautiful and dripping with atmosphere.

There's no need to guess exact counts, since what we've heard is enough to get us excited. For the GTA 6 interiors, quality will likely come before sheer quantity, even if the total ends up higher because of how much there is to do inside each space.

Some repetition is natural, like finding electronics in gadget shops or specific tools in a hardware store. That makes sense, because in real life, different branches of the same chain carry standard stock. Whatever the final number turns out to be, the GTA 6 interiors are shaping up as a real step forward, and it will be interesting to see which shops, bars, and hangouts Jason and Lucia end up walking into.