Former Rockstar animator Mike York suggests the GTA 6 delay is justified based on what we saw from the second trailer.
We get it. Delays happen all the time. Rockstar Games, in particular, is infamous for delays. It happened to Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto IV. Sometimes, these delays can even happen at the last minute, as explained by former Rockstar North lead developer, Obbe Vermeij. So while it's disheartening that Grand Theft Auto 6 isn't coming out later this year, it's almost always for a good reason.
In GTA 6's case, the reason could be the second GTA 6 trailer. With a nearly two-year gap between the first and second GTA 6 trailer, Rockstar had plenty of time to cook, as the kids say these days. As a result, GTA 6 looks even better than ever, which may have played into the lengthy delay.
Here's a part of what former Rockstar animator Mike York had to say about the new GTA 6 trailer: "Sometimes during production you figure out something that changes everything, and in here it could be lighting. They're like 'Oh no', they figured out how to solve this new thing to make the lighting look much better, and then they just crank that up to 10, 11. They start really focusing on changing a lot of stuff and redoing all the lights because they found this new kind of method maybe to do the lighting, the reflections and all the different stuff for the ray tracing." " That sometimes can get reworked and that can be a delay, right? That's why a game can get delayed, like I explained earlier in my video, is making certain decisions along the way that alter this path of the game, and it looks like the lighting is definitely one of them. They've done something to the lighting."
Mike York was part of Rockstar New England from 2012 to 2017, having worked on Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. Previously, York was one of the first to call out GTA 6 and its potential performance issues on the PlayStation 5. With the latest GTA 6 trailer running on the base PS5, it certainly seems like the delay was well worth it.
Given how smooth the game runs and how awesome it looks on the 2020 console, asking for a little more time to polish things isn't unreasonable. We're inclined to agree with what York said in his video that "no other game has the detail and the amount of realism that GTA 6 does and will have when it's released," as he proceeded to tell those who are complaining about the delay to "zip it".
Like with his previous video, York's latest reaction is well worth checking out.
