Rockstar Games has assembled a dedicated team to individually "art-direct" the animations of every non-player character (NPC) in Grand Theft Auto 6, resulting in more than ten times the number of unique animations found in Grand Theft Auto 5. This reflects Rockstar's continued push for greater realism and immersion in its open-world design, with background characters expected to move and behave in far more varied and lifelike ways than in previous instalments.

The detail emerged from reporting on the game's development process, highlighting the scale of manual effort Rockstar is putting into making its virtual population feel distinctive rather than relying on generic, repeated animation cycles. While specific figures on total animation counts were not confirmed, the tenfold increase over GTA 5 underscores the significant expansion in scope and production resources behind GTA 6 compared with its predecessor.