Will Grand Theft Auto 6 Bring Catharsis?
Having watched the 90-second trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, our first official glimpse of Rockstar’s forthcoming crime epic, we have one burning question: Can you pet the gator? It turns out the rumors and leaks were true: For the first time since 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the franchise is heading back to Leonida, its fictional stand-in for Florida. This is the home of Vice City (i.e., Miami), an overabundance of neon lights, car-rattling music, Florida Man, and, judging by the trailer, some of the biggest, baddest gators to have ever graced a video game.
As per previous Rockstar reveals, the emphasis in this short, sharply edited trailer is first and foremost on the setting. The action begins with a purple-pink-and-orange sky that hovers above a bustling freeway before cutting to the barbed wire of prison fencing and a beach that surely belongs to Vice City. From there, we see a hovercraft gliding across a swamp, exquisitely rendered flamingos, hopping clubs, and all manner of absurd street-level shenanigans featuring scantily dressed Floridians. Leonida looks vast, densely populated, and teeming with many different kinds of life; it seems that Rockstar hasn’t lost its knack for capturing the essence of place (or, at least, the essence of place as it exists in the popular imagination). Indeed, when the game is released in 2025 (not long to wait, folks), the studio will likely regain its place as the planet’s preeminent builder of exquisite virtual worlds.
Amid all of this compelling scene-setting, we catch the first glimpse of our protagonist, a woman named Lucia, who appears to have just got out of prison and is hell-bent on enjoying herself. Is that her waving her arms with drunken abandon from a sports car hurtling by at full speed? There she is at an exclusive pool party taking place at a skyscraper penthouse. In another shot, she’s holding a wodge of cash as she escapes from the police, a wry smile creeping out of the corner of her mouth. Lucia could offer a considerable step-up from the three distinctly unlikable protagonists of Grand Theft Auto 5: the psychotic hick Trevor, the middle-aged cynic Michael, and the quietly monstrous Franklin. She’s a character who’s perhaps better able to express the cathartic joy of wanton destruction that’s always underpinned the Grand Theft Auto games.
Will GTA 6 do for video games what Thelma & Louise did for movies? That movie’s violence was scary, of course, but it could also be abrupt, surprising, absurd, and quite often cathartic as the two protagonists turned their ire on various men. Making a woman lead has been a trend in video games since GTA 5 was released ten years ago, a well-intentioned corrective to years of gruff male protagonists intended for young men, but there tends to be an assumption that women in video games must be pure and good. (See Aloy in the Horizon series, one of the most infuriatingly mild-mannered, people-pleasing game protagonists ever written.) On the contrary, it could be quite the thrill playing transgressively as a desperate, drunk, mad Lucia. One wonders if there will be abortion clinic protesters on the streets of Vice City to face her wrath? Did the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade happened in GTA 6’s fictional version of America?
And what’s this? For all of the brash wackiness, over-the-top action, typically broad satire (you could be visiting a location called the “Thrill Billy Mudclub”), and women twerking on top of fast-moving cars, it seems as if the sixth entry in the franchise will soften the narrative just a touch by telling a love story. Our protagonist is accompanied by a partner in crime with whom she’s romantically entangled, and a big chunk of the game is set to involve Bonnie-and-Clyde-style robberies as they seek to build a life with each other. “The only way we’re gonna get through this is by sticking together, being a team,” Lucia says to her man in bed at a cheap motel. Where will it all lead? To fame, fortune and perhaps tragedy, a garish, oceanside condo you’d imagine, and encounters with all manner of exuberant Florida natives, gators included.
Related