GTA VI NPC Routines: A City Needs Familiar Faces
A shopkeeper who closes up for the night. A neighbour you recognise on the way out. The GTA VI NPC debate gets more interesting when it moves from crowd size to the people you might actually remember.
In the linked Reddit thread, u/SBM_Products asks whether GTA VI can give pedestrians the sort of daily routines fans associate with Red Dead Redemption 2. Replies split between expecting persistent locals and imagining most of the city as a changing crowd.
What a routine adds to playing
Imagine returning to the same corner at different times. A café might be busy in the morning, a delivery might interrupt the pavement at midday, and the street might empty out later. Those hypothetical changes would give you a reason to notice time passing without following one person for an entire shift.
For us, the more interesting test would come when the player interrupts that rhythm. Does the activity resume? Do nearby people react in ways that fit what just happened? Continuity at street level could make a brief encounter feel like part of a place.
The every-pedestrian claim is still open
This discussion does not establish a complete schedule for every NPC, or how long characters persist after you leave. A few convincing regulars could carry much of the effect fans are asking for. We would want to see how the city holds together during ordinary play before judging the scale of the simulation.