Dan Houser

But that feeling, I think, was one of the things, the illusions that people found very captivating was I'm in a world that both doesn't exist and does exist.

You know, for me, it came at a really interesting time in my life personally, and I was very able to engage in it probably for the first time professionally, actually awake and do something.

And we really sort of began to scratch the surface on how do we fill these worlds with content and how do we make that content interesting and make the content all interwoven.

So as you start to mess with these systems, they also feel alive and interesting.

Well, I think the open world is intrinsically pretty fun.

It's just fun to be in a world and have complete freedom.

And certainly, I think at various points, we debated or, you know, I had theoretical discussions in my own head with myself or other people in the team would really push for less story, less story, you know, let the whole thing evolve organically.

You know, have it all be procedural.

Have it all just evolve from what you do.

I think for me, I would always come back to going, story can be, if done well, can be incredibly compelling and it gives you some structure.

So I think, and something to do.

And it helps you from a game design perspective, unlock the features.

It means we know the big features because essentially when you put someone in a world and give them a whole new way of interacting with that world through the control panel, it can be a little overwhelming.

Playing a game is a lot more an engaging experience even than reading a movie, reading a book or watching a movie.

You've got to engage in it properly.

So how you unlock the features and how you unlock the world, there's an art and a skill to that.

And I think we felt that a structured story was the best way to do that and to have control over that process.

And also just, you know,

people are looking in their lives for story.

I think story is very important and very powerful.