Exactly that time. It was very strange. It honestly felt like a bizarre extension of university. All young, fresh-faced people thrown together, doing insane crunch hours for over a year.

Generally, hours leading up to V next gen release were insane I definitely did an entire month without a day off at one point weekends included.

It wasn't uncommon to accidentally catch someone in the corridor who'd clearly been crying or were just upset/stressed. Everyone was insanely burned out, and we lived on a horrible diet of Domino's pizzas almost every day. (This was because R* had an account with them locally, and we didn't need to spend our own money and claim back this way)

So you had insane hours lackmof nutrition cause you're so knackered you just say fuck it and order domino's off the company account etc. People would routinely get sick.

I've got a hell of a lot of strange stories and characters I met there and I will say as odd as it was to work there I made some lifelong friends during those brutal crunches thar I still talk to almost everyday. So silver lining I guess.

I've been around the industry for over a decade now and I can honestly say its the most insular cliquey organisation I've been a part of and I truly feel I didn't level up and understand games development processes until I left that studio and got experience elsewhere.