The Problematic Evolution of GTA Physics 

Was GTA 5 an actual downgrade in character physics?

Great video, but one thing I'd like to point out that I'm not sure if you aware of yet is that, NaturalMotion is owned by Zynga, and who owns Zynga? Take-Two. Who owns Rockstar? Take-Two. So the licensing is negated at that point because they're "sister-companies". I wouldn't even be surprised if NaturalMotion's Euphoria devs are completely integrated within Rockstar now.

I wanna see a skateboarding game with Euphoria Physics.

Driving fast in GTA 4 actually feels dangerous and terrifying, I hope they keep that realistic gameplay for 6 too

Me watching Euphoria physics in 2009: "This is the future of gaming". Never seen it again.

Based on the Gta 6 leaks it looks like Rockstar learned from their mistake with Gta 5

RDR 2’s physics also has weight like things feel like it actually has weight! GTA VI can be the best of IV & V and even better than RDR2. More realism.

I saw the leaked clip where Lucia shoots at cops, and ohhh gid have i ever seen euphoria as satisfying as gta 6, the way cops don't really die completely and struggle on the ground, the way they fall, surely that can't change in the finished game because it feels specific to gta 6 and not just reused rdr2 physics

Shooting guns in GTA5 feels like you’re shooting paintball guns.

It’s funny because before I really understood any of this. Way back in the day in 2013, when I played GTA V on release day for the first time. I immediately noticed the physics from the driving, to vehicle deformation to shooting was completely different.

Take2 owns zynga which means they own euphoria which also means rockstar basically owns eurphoria now.

It's very early to say anything about the physics though. I'm pretty sure the physics will be enhanced this time around, especially as the game is based on an updated version of RDR2's engine

I got recommanded this first time youtube ever recommended something good great video and editing simple and well done really enjoyed this.

i’m obsessed with ragdoll physics, great video

love these types of videos keep making them pls

There are a few mods that make tweaks to RDR2's euphoria and they're even better than the original. But they aim for realism. I hope GTA 6 will go more towards that direction

This video is great and we thank you for all the effort you put into it whatever it may be and I'm definitely hoping to see a few upgrades in the Euphoria engine in GTA 6, with a 2 billion dollar budget it's more than possible!

This may be the most interesting and well made vid on GTA I've seen. Instant sub

The reason why gta v was a step down in physics is because of the ps3/xbox360 limitations , you can’t have gta v huge world when gta 4 physics

Haven’t seen a single video of yours and within 30 seconds I’m subscribing. You’re one of the only creators making videos on this topic in front of camera. Well done ❤

Video: de-evolution of GTA physics GTA 6: *not even out yet*

I subbed to this guy, it’s a different style of content from most of the documentaries I’ve seen. A breath of fresh air tbh

I appreciate you actually knowing what you're talking about and describing the technical details

You're videos are absolutely fantastic.

RDR2 felt better than, but still a bit too similar too GTA5 with adaptive animations and ragdoll physics, GTA4 felt more impactful than RDR2 in my opinion. Like GTA4 characters had propper weight, limbs that would swing realistically, ability to regain balance, real survival instincts. I hope GTA6 has expands on the GTA4 recipie rather than the RDR2 formula.

GTA was never about realism and it should never be. Period.

I think they cut back on the physics in GTAV to make the playable on a PS3. They upgraded everything else except cut back the physics. Then with RDR2 being on PS4 they could bring back the physics. You may ask - why not bring back the physics for GTAV for PS4? The game has to feel the same on all platforms, otherwise those are 2 different games.

Yo love your videos man. Keep up the good work. Always interested into these videos since they're so helpful!! Don't get how this video doesn't have thousands of likes because it really does deserve a lot of likes. ❤ Man once the RTX 5090 releases I don't even think it'll run a stable 60 FPS on GTA 6 with the highest settings. lmao

Unschooled but always looking around . Every new iteration of GTA , any things dismissed, just made me appreciate how Rockstar squeezed every ounce of current gen , " wondering when the next gen was coming out . No wonder they sat back with GTAVI ... " And take your time , Rockstar " . GTA, AT 4 , became art on heart . Don't rush ....

is this andrew tate?

I'm still blown away with RDR1s physics, from how people clutch at wounds, to just being able to ragdoll walk after getting drunk lol

THANK YOU! Someone who appreciates good physics engine. My biggiest issues with GTA 5 was the physics. Honestly as a bigger whole I want devs to focus on physics more again than details and graphics as to me that’s what keeps me playing.

I've been loving the content recently. Keep it up!

Ur video is so entertaining and informative thank u for making loved it ❤️ explained pretty much every aspect and freaking wished the euphoria engine was accessible to everyone 😢 rockstar hopefully makes the gta 6 one option in settings to make euphoria more or less like a option - entertain me or give me some gta 5 😂 the toggle switch

The physics in IV are so cool and well integrated with the gameplay sometimes. For example, when you drive, the realistic suspension and drifting of the cars will dificult your escapes from the police, and if you are driving ultra fast and you crash your car at a stupid high speed it's pretty likely your character will fly through the window in such way that you will die. So sometimes when driving, not only it's caotic, you will feel a lot of: "oh shit oh shit, I'm going to die" feeling. In superbikes it's even worse you feel death coming to you in every way specially if you forgot your helmet. So awesome this NEEDS to be in gta VI and was almost completely absent, since every crqsh is very tonedown and you don't fly into your death like that.

**The Liberty City Swingset would like to know your location.**

this guy is severely underrated. he’s gonna pop off soon i’m calling it

nahh i fr love you man. keep up💪😃

I like gta 4 player physics but hate the car physics so much that I walk or fly everywhere

Love your content bro ❤

i've seen all gta 6 leaks, specifically ones showcasing combat and ragdolls. i have my hopes high, as they look really good.

You skipped RD1! Imo it was the perfect implementation of euphoria engine, perfect balance of weight and exaggerated motion from spaghetti western. Fit the tone of the game perfectly

GTA IV was the game that made childhood me realize videogames are a completely immersive/interactive piece of art, that can tell beautiful stories when done right. (Sometimes people don't understand &/or appreciate the little details of physics in life and media until they don't exist. ask anyone who plays VR games 😂)

Sometimes games priorites fun over realism and i guarantee that people would be complaining about gta5 physics now if it had gta4 physics. its just that they don't have to deal with its tediousness now so they have fond memories of it, but what is fun for couple of hours wont be fun forever.

i cant stand how clunky the movement has become in rockstar games

This was a very interesting video to watch. Thank you dressing gown tate.

Rdr2 is so fun when it comes to just screwing around the map and they did it perfectly

Considering that GTA VI is a next gen only game, I think that gives them more room for improvement. The biggest mistake they made with GTA V was releasing it on Xbox 360 and PS3. While yes it gave more players the chance to play it and they added many cool new features, they also removed some other features that were in GTA IV. Seeing how they were able to make Red Dead Redemption II better than both of them in terms of physics, I have hope for GTA VI.

GTA IVs entire physics system was called over the top, unrealistic and in case of cars - annoying, because realistic physics was never experienced by players before both in games and in real life. In reality people thrown up in the air by cars do look like actual rag dolls, spin wildly, slide on the asphalt considerable distances before coming to stop. etc (hell, I personally know a guy that had his hands torn off in an accident just from the impact force) cause the forces are so huge and everything happens so fast, that our muscle system doesn't have any chance to do anything. But if you've never seen a real live event (like a car crash video) - it may seem like a character is weightless and friction doesn't exist. The same with cars - in reality they do experience massive body roll on fast turns, sink when breaking, loos grip very abruptly, lock up breaks etc. - If anything the handling in GTA IV wasn't nearly hard enough or over the top enough to accurately depict the real thing (Obviously it would make the game unplayable). But again, it was vastly different to the toy/tank-like behaviour of other games featuring regular cars, and most players had never have an occasion to see a regular car do those things in real life. It wasn't perfect and had a fair amount of glitches but was vastly more realistic than anything before - but due to complaints Rockstar decided to water it down in GTA V and at I hope that at some point they've realised they had overreacted, and GTA VI will hit the sweet spot.

The npc falling towards the railing like handsome squidward 🤣🤣🤣

Just to add some informations, NaturalMotion belongs to Zynga, that has been bought by Take-Two in 2022. So Rockstar and NaturalMotion are now in the same company, so they can work together more easily.

1:12 nostalgia happened. People who played GTA IV as kids grew up and they’re the ones talking about how great it was

Just imagine the Duke O' Death with GTA 4's physics. Wow. In 5 you can launch cars halfway across the damn map, I can only guess at how satisfying that previous engine would be.

The lack of giving Red Dead Redemption credit on its Physics/Euphoria is criminal.

Everyone seems to forget RDR1 existence and it had the best version of euphoria yet, im hopping GTA 6 fix some things that lacked in RDR2 Euphoria but i do feel like RDR2 euphoria was somewhat better than 5.

people that were mentally mature in 2008 and later understood how great IV was. now, after years the kids that criticized it back then finally grew up and realized what its all about

I personally like GTA 5 better than 4. Especially now, as I’ve been playing 4 back through again.

A part of me wants to think that they changed the ragdoll physics because of map design, it worked for GTA IV because of the mostly flat geometry, if GTA V had GTA IV physics cararcters would grap edges of the moutain that ruins the flow of the ragdoll and create very bouncy effect when coliding with any surface for example when going down of mount challiad your character would turn in bouncing ball, they clearly wanted go for more realistic aproach so the game does not feel like it has cartoony physics.

Have you ever tried RDR1? I believe that game has the perfect physics out of any rockstar game.

Crazy that the ragdoll button used to be a mod in GTA four it’s just a feature in five

Another good video. You should consider making a video about the AI in their games next because.. GTA 4 was so good for its time, for example doing a mission where you’re in an apartment building having a shootout is so satisfying, checking corners then shooting an enemy to watch them trip around or fall an finish them off felt good. GTA 5 failed at this satisfying level which did suck an although red dead did bring this back I just felt like their was something still missing, after playing both games you realize that even though the npcs in RDR2 can be much smarter, they also can come off as being a little overwhelming. Where in a gunfight in RDR2 they feel the need to run in your face an constantly bombard you so fast much like gta 5, it just felt like every gun fight was ment to be rushed through an no time to think. Often times the npcs in red dead an gta 5 don’t miss their shots as much, almost as if they have aimbot or an unrealistic aim, which can really be frustrating or break immersive when you’re trying to take out a gunman slowly only to realize he’s part of John Wicks blood line. GTA 4 nailed all of this, the pacing was perfect, the physics were top notch, the structure was simple an grounded, an all the npcs felt natural an relatable. When you got into a gunfight in GTA 4 they would likely more or not miss their shots making it more realistic an satisfying to move at your own risk. I liked that shootouts could take several minutes to get through or if you wanted you could easily rush through mowing them all down which also felt great. But I loved that the game still let you decide to have a slower realistic gameplay sometimes, not to mention that sometimes after putting a realistic amount of damage in an npc in GTA 4 they would still be alive but too wounded to fight so they either laid their barley alive or trying to slowly walk away. It was nice to take to things at your own pace in GTA 4 because you knew majority of gunfights played out real without a random horde of npcs rushing you all at once in a unreal manor. In their newer titles the npcs come off as very aggressive without thinking almost it seems an it can kinda break away the experience. I pray in gta 6 the physics, pacing, shooting, an structure as a game whole can be a perfect representation of all their great titles from the past where they have that perfect balance to incorporate all the good from their other titles.

Euphoria isn't the engine, it's a middleware (like say NVidia PhysX) that they implemented into their proprietary RAGE engine. Before ~2008 they used Criterion's Renderware.

You forgot to mention the ragdoll of the first Red Dead Redemption. In my opinion, it is truly the best ragdoll in Rockstar games. It was a toned down version of GTA IV exaggerated ragdolls, but not as much to lost its essence like in GTA V. Seeing how a character reacts after being shot or run over is so good, plus it's the best game to get drunk.

I almost feel like GTA 4 physics fits better witt the over the top vibe of GTA 5, and vice versa

Btw, Zynga owns NaturalMotion, and TTWO owns Zynga, so it's not really a license anymore. They're part of the same group

To be brutally honest, I wish Euphoria had never happened to gaming. Because we went from crisp, precise movement systems based on the notion that the game should respond promptly and precisely to player inputs... to a system that considers player inputs secondary to the physics, and actively renders the movement sluggish for the sake of "realism", to the point where at times, in some of these titles, the movement is outright broken by the physics. For example, last time I tried to play through Max Payne 3 again, I quickly grew too frustrated with the fact that the player character is entirely capable of actively moving in the OPPOSITE direction to the one the player pressed, because the physics engine said "the character's body was pointing this way, so the movement direction must be this way". Other times, this disagreement between the input and the physics system actually locked my character in place; the attempted movement simply not happening, because at that particular moment, the physics decided the requested movement wasn't possible relative to body position, despite there being no other obstacles. Then we have the GTA IV and GTA V hilarity of "oops, I slightly missed the thing I need to pick up - oh, now I'm walking in circles for five minutes because my character won't move directly in the direction I pressed but instead handles like a small vehicle." Give me clean, fine-tuned movement with some nice animation work and inverse kinematics over full-body physics any day.

I think that with the scale that GTA 5 was. R* decided to add more realism and details into other aspects of the game and had to sacrifice the physics due to console limitations at the time. Remember that GTA 4 had no character/car customization at all. That's just one example. Im just glad it seems like with RDR2 they don't need to make those sacrifices anymore

The guns had better recoil feel in gta 4 it felt you where actually shooting a real gun and the bullet impacts on in game objects was soo realistic hope they go back to that 👍 sunglasses 😎

I remember sometimes when playing gta 4, I'd use the chopper, I'd fly down the middle of a long street then leap out, the resulting physics based chaos would be from what i remember a ragdoll cartwheel that traveled dozens of meters.

Small correction on your points earlier in the video GTA III released in 2001 on the PS2, a month after the tragedy of 9/11, but the PC port was released in 2002

What’s funny is they compared GTA 4 physics to Starfield and GTA 4 crushed that disaster of a game. You would think that Starfield would show some reaction to being on top of fire but sadly there was no reaction until his health ran out he finally fell down and died.

Great historical look at the physics engine in GTA. Still wondering why you decided to wear a bathrobe though. Odd choice of attire.

I’ll never understand why people think the physics is better yes it’s more fun but people don’t flip and flop like jelly

Playing GTA IV again recently. I really feel like niko has some kind of weight to him and that I had to be careful in gunfights otherwise I was going to be punished for making a mistake. I really don’t feel the same way in gta V

How do people know so much about this game and it's not even out yet 😂 I appreciate all the details though 💯

If gta 6 physics are stiff like gta 5 imma be pissed

Great video

Playing GTA IV you feel how it's evolved. GTA V feels devolved.

Yep, thats why 6 will be even worse than 5. There won t be a better GTA than 4. RDR2 was an exception, let s hope 6 will be half decent.

Bass Dragons Euphoria Physics Overhaul fixes this issue to absolute perfection. I'll post a mod list down below for anyone that wants euphoria fixedZ

It took till I got to Trevor when I realized how much easier it was. There wasn't really a steep learning curve like 4 and two shots generally kill everyone and took the fighting out. Concussions from explosions didn't do as much. It really felt like a step back. Rdr had came out in the meantime and thought V would be more alive like rdr2 ended up being

Natural motion is owned by take two

I has never seen this video, but I hope you mention bullet freeware physx engine. Euphoria = Ragdolls. Bullet = Objects.

motorcycles have never pissed me off more than anything in the game the smallest bump cause you to fly

awesome awesome and important video man

The thing I hate the most in GTA V is the car getting on a curb and the whole body of the car 'snapping'. I can't believe no one is talking about it and how crazy it is, when you execute it at lower speeds, it looks crazy -_-

I’m pretty sure Take 2 bought Natural Motion to implement in GTA, FIFA, ect.

"Euphoria is a license based engine, meaning this license can expire at any given point, or even extinguished" Take Two owns the company behind Euphoria now (that's related to the article you showed right after saying this), so that's never going to happen, i'd say that also guarantees the integration of it in VI

I'm surprised you haven't heard of the patent they did few months back. They will have advanced procedural animations, way ahead of what we've seen on RDR2. It is so good that they had to patent it.

You have to be fucking high as shit to think GTA 4's physics is realistic, its extremely fun, addictive, hilarious and extremely impressive when it comes to small details, games then and game's now still cant match GTA 4's physics. But realistic it is not. There's no way anyone with a functioning brain thinks the human body falling from a tall building will yeet off to the side, flying a extra 4 feet once it hits the ground like a fucking basketball is realistic. Niko damn near breaking the sound barrier just from jumping out of a speeding vehicle is a testament to this.

the physics i want are gettin better😋🙏

I certainly did not complain about GTA IV's physics, it was the best thing about it for me. I also didn't remember anyone complaining about it. I attribute such statements today thus as trying to gaslight us into thinking people disliked GTA IV's physics. It was a masterpiece. I likened it to an unofficial sequel to PS1's "Driver", which was the first 'floaty crash physics' fun free roam, criminal vs cops game for consoles. Even GTA III, which I liked pretty well and played extensively, did not quite have the same level of crashing fun physics as Driver for PS1. Vice City in retrospect felt like to GTA III what GTA V was to GTA IV, just less extreme, however noticeably more 'plastic', even slightly so in the vehicle physics department. There are so many things that GTA IV did that have not been replicated since, my favorite - aside from the ragdoll and vehicle physics - include: • Being able to pick any object up and throw it. • Actually still being able to get away from police via pulling into a Paint n Spray • Accessing police data base from their cars once stolen, and tracking down criminals. • Accessing the ambulance data base once stolen and rescuing people. (GTA IV was more than a murder simulator, which is what GTA V feels like to me - it has fewer interactive options like these mentioned) The attention to detail made me feel like I was really in Liberty City. I have some gripes, like I did get tired of the constant gray color pallet after awhile, and how sometimes traffic would disappear after purposefully causing gridlock. Yet I'd take the latter's hardware limitation glitch over the reduction of physics depth we got in GTA V any day. I understand what they were doing required a physics reduction to save the memory for a bigger map and graphical texture fidelity. However the trade off to me was not worth it. I experienced GTA IV, the time spent felt like a real experience. I PLAYED GTA V, much of the time spent felt vain. Upon revisiting GTA IV not long ago when I had access to my nephew's PS3, I was reminded of the greatness, and will be selling my PS4 and re-purchasing a PS3 just to get back in touch with the greatness. FYI, I always felt GTA IV looked and ran amazingly on PS3. It felt sharp and realistic to me, with usually a good frame rate. I really think it might matter which version of PS3 one is using, or otherwise the complaints I feel are mostly another gaslighting attempt possibly by XBox and PC loyalists. I loved my PS3, and I miss it and the controller.

one thing that always gets better is the jiggle physics

Natural motion and rockstar have the same parent company. They have “brand synergy”. It’s not going anywhere

In 2022 Rockstar purchased the NaturalMotion studio, so now euphoria is legally a technology of Rockstar. That means GTA VI will definitely be using euphoria, and it also means that we will never receive new games with this engine except games made by Rockstar

Came here for car damage physics, hoped you hughlight it more😕

Maxpayne 3 and RDR1 had fantastic physics. RDR2 brought alot back the fist fighting physics are best Rockstar have done yet. GTA6 should be pretty good.

i think rockstar purposely made gta4 have better physics just so they could test a more arcade type physics with gta5

Sure GTA 5 had a downgrade in Physics. You have to consider some key factors though, mainly that GTA5 had a much bigger map than GTA4 and one of the possible reasons for a regression in map size compared to GTASA was Euphoria. Simply put you can really see how much the game engine struggles in the higher Pedestrian settings in GTA4 so imagine such a sophisticated system on a much bigger map on a 360, yeah the game wouldn't run that well. In the emd it suffered from being a 360 and PS3 game

What's the music used in this?! Its really good! Can sum1 tell me?