It’s been a few days since Rockstar announced that GTA VI was going to be delayed another year. To make up for the disappointment, they’ve shared a new trailer, which is cool. But, I genuinely wonder how much people care now.
We’ll do a quick breakdown of the trailer in a moment, but there are some things niggling me about GTA VI. Or rather Grand Theft Auto in the modern age.
GTA VI
I love the GTA series. From the moment we played the original on my friends PC, to trying to buy GTA London in an old video rental shop when I was clearly underage.
Fantasising about what a 3D GTA could look like once we started playing Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. To see the announcement of GTA III in a magazine we used to get.
Grand Theft Auto has been a significant part of my life for a long time.
I bought the special edition of GTA IV with the duffel bag and the safety deposit box. I played GTA V on Xbox 360 and Xbox one and PC.
I like to think I’ve had enough exposure to the series to understand it. And in doing so, I wonder if the world really needs another one?
Will GTA VI manage to get by on the very on-the-nose satire? Like, how much of a joke has America become that a parody of it seems impossible?
Staying relevant
Sure, there’s low-hanging fruit about modern culture and the left-wing/right-wing extremes that live so predominantly in people’s minds at the moment. But will it work anymore? Will it be funny?
More importantly, with GTA VI being in development for so long, how much of it can even remain relevant and modern? Surely, there’s some writing and voice lines in there that might have been solid gold a year ago, but in another year, what impact will they have?
All being well, Rockstar have taken GTA VI more down the route of Red Dead Redemption 2 where the story and the characters are king.
The satire is toned-down to more obvious stuff like brand names, and some pops at the modern world that are broad enough to be relevant still (targeting the difference and attitudes between generations is an easy one).
The other side of the coin, of course, is that Rockstar have set and re-set the bar for gaming so many times from a technology perspective. Let’s be honest, GTA V shouldn’t have looked as good as it did on the tech it came out on.
Re-defining what a proper AAA game could be, regularly. It’s hard to argue that Rockstar don’t have the pedigree. So I’m quietly hopeful that it’s be another hit.
I just don’t see it making the same waves as GTA III, IV and V.
What’s coming?
Ok, enough of the lamenting about how “it’s not going to be my GTA anymore”……
What does GTA VI look to have in store for us?
Well, it doesn’t really show us a lot. What we see are the two protagonists Jason and Lucia and the focus looking to be very much on a Bonnie and Clyde-style story. A criminal couple wreaking havoc across the land.
But damn, GTA VI is looking stunning! Did you see the foil on the beer bottles? The hair and the sweat on people?
No doubt this is all pre-rendered cutscenes, or at least nicely captured and edited in-game cutscene footage. There’s still no gameplay, no hints at what cool stuff Rockstar have invented or implemented.
In a way, I hope the character focus highlights the importance of the narrative this time around. Potentially pulling back a bit from the uber-satire from GTA V.
So maybe it’s a good thing we’re only seeing these clips as the “look what we have” from Rockstar, right now.
Time will tell
We have at least another year to go, and lets be honest, knowing Rockstar that will be a year of polish and tweaking the game.
Avoiding crunch for the development team is something they have to do now, and rightfully so. So if you need more time and can’t force people to cram it in during every waking moment for a few months. Then you have to extend the launch date. Simple.
Hopefully if the crunch is less, the product will be better as you’d likely have a workforce not burned-out and suffering to get to a launch. But what the hell do I know? All speculation!
Here’s hoping GTA VI finds a way to hit all the right notes. Or at least deliver on a Red Dead Redemption 2-esque story with well fleshed-out characters and a strong narrative. With a flash of that well-known satire for good measure.
I’m not particularly excited right now, to be honest, but I’m sure that will change close to launch, when I believe it’s actually going to happen.