The Grand Ambitions of Grand Theft Auto VI

That ought to be the shared article link. If they ask for a sign-in at this point, it might be as free as they allow it to be.

For nearly 27 minutes last month, I sat enthralled while watching Jason and Lucia, the main characters of Grand Theft Auto VI, ascend a social ladder from a drug deal gone bad in a seedy tower block to a party with coked-out entrepreneurs christening their new office building. Beyond the self-assured roughnecks and fidgety jet-setters, there was a panorama of scenes in the extended look at the video game: stock-car racing, skydiving, bayou boating, kayaking, nightclub dancing and, of course, balletic violence.

When the lights came up inside Rockstar North’s building in Edinburgh, a group of studio leaders peered my way. At a loss for words, I looked down, held up my hand and asked for a moment. There was quiet, polite laughter.

I was wrestling with the sense of elation that comes from glimpsing a work of art that promises to marshal one’s full attention. A wave of positive emotion swept through the room, tears edging down faces.

That extended look at Grand Theft Auto VI was shared with the public on Netflix on Thursday, building further anticipation for its Nov. 19 release date. The series, one drenched in violence and satirizing American culture, is a virtual playground where you can blow up police cars or organize productions of “Hamlet.” The release of a new game is the equivalent of a fresh Beyoncé album or Martin Scorsese film, a rare monocultural moment in a fragmented world. Since Grand Theft Auto V was released in 2013, it has sold 230 million copies and generated billions in revenue for Rockstar.

“Most blockbusters have an opening weekend,” Geoff Keighley, the creator and host of the Game Awards, said in an email. “G.T.A. has an opening decade.”

Grand Theft Auto VI, the subject of leaks this month, will be expansive: Vice City, its alluring interpretation of Miami, is twice the size of Los Santos, the version of Los Angeles in Grand Theft Auto V, according to Rockstar. The overall map, the studio said, is three times as large as the playable area of its previous game, Red Dead Redemption 2.

It also promises to be incredibly immersive. Unlike in other Grand Theft Auto games, a player in this one cannot whip out a shotgun or a rocket launcher and walk down the street without expecting the nonplayer characters to call the police.

Rob Nelson, who oversees Rockstar North with Aaron Garbut, said he considered Grand Theft Auto VI an evolution of what the studio achieved in 2018 with Red Dead Redemption 2, which told the story of a man unsettled by the erosion of the Wild West. That game’s systems were built to be responsive to a wide array of actions, whether the player was hunting animals, helping someone in hope of a reward or unrepentantly robbing that person instead.

“Once we managed to accomplish that level of interactive fidelity in a more sparsely populated version of America 100 years ago,” Nelson said, “we were already imagining what it would be like if we could do that at the scale and density of a modern environment.”

Fight and Flight

Nelson picked up a controller and turned on Grand Theft Auto VI. “We are adding so much more depth and interactivity to the world,” he said while leading Jason around a safe house. “Here I am eating an apple, opening the fridge and drinking a smoothie. So this will increase my health temporarily for a while, allowing people to sort of role-play.” Exiting the apartment, Jason stooped down to pet a pedestrian’s dog. Nelson said you could buy pet snacks from convenience stores and dole them out if you wished.

As Jason walked past a tennis court, I asked whether there was a tennis minigame like in Grand Theft Auto V. Nelson said you could only pick up a racket and swat a ball.

“Of course we want to do everything, we want to have every mechanic that you can imagine,” Nelson said. “But we do have to carefully pick and choose what we think is best for our characters and our story and what we can handle creatively and technically.”

Nelson ducked Jason into a gym, where he walked past people on treadmills and stepped into a squat rack. Unlocking higher weights requires working out and a mastery of technique. By pressing down on the controller’s triggers, players can manage the rise and descent of the movement. Flub the rhythm and it is harder to get out of the hole, which results in stamina drain. Success has a material effect on the character.

“I hope that there will be people that want to get up, have a cup of coffee, shower, get dressed, go out for a little exercise,” Nelson said. His 80-hour play-through of the game in February included the main story and some optional goals with narrative ramifications. Routines can escalate quickly. “Interact with some people, explore, maybe get into some trouble,” he added. “Rob some places, make some money.”

It was time to check on Lucia, Nelson said. The camera shot into the air overlooking the city and then descended on her walking down a street.

I watched Lucia get into a verbal altercation and then a fight with a group of women. After knocking one woman’s sunglasses to the ground, Lucia scooped them up, put them on and sauntered away in style. A little later, Lucia linked up with Jason and robbed a convenience store. The two made their escape by jacking a motorcycle from some unlucky sap who called in the theft. (To steal older cars, you can smash their windows or jimmy their locks and hot-wire them. Newer cars will require a key cloner.)

Jason and Lucia are on the run in Grand Theft Auto VI, and to skate by, they will need to make money outside of the story missions. Beyond criminal activity, they can earn cash by racing monster trucks, scuba diving for treasure, playing pool and more.

Whether they do so as lovers or simply as partners in crime will be up to the player. Keeping the couple’s relationship strong enough for Lucia and Jason to hold hands when leaving a clothing store will require effort — hanging out, responding to texts. “It’s new for G.T.A., this idea of your actions having meaning in terms of how you treat your partner or how violent you are,” Nelson said.

While there is no right or wrong way to play, the world will react according to how the characters conduct themselves. If players stick up places efficiently and destroy security footage when necessary, Nelson said, they should generally be able to stay in front of the law. Going around guns blazing will make the police aggressive.

To raise the stakes, Nelson has the couple rob a bank. Things go sideways when a guard triggers an alarm, but they are able to get away with marked bills that will have to be taken to a fence. Back in their vehicle, Lucia shoots out the tires of a trailing police car, causing it to spin out of control and flip over in a way that is nothing short of cinematic.

A Seamless Experience

Rockstar is well aware of the expectations surrounding Grand Theft Auto VI, which will be released on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. “Some people didn’t like G.T.A. V and think G.T.A. IV was better, or Red Dead 2 it was too long, too slow,” Nelson said. “There are opinions on all of this stuff from every angle. You have to try and keep it in perspective.”

I asked if the studio created a strong female character to address a longstanding criticism of the series. Nelson denied that was the case. Rockstar initially considered making four playable characters — one more than the previous game — but worried that might make it hard to emotionally connect. That was when the idea of a playable relationship emerged.

“As soon as we had that Bonnie and Clyde concept,” Nelson said, “we knew it was the only way for us to go with this game.”

Nelson began his career in 2003 as a lead animator at Rockstar Toronto, one of the many studios within the publisher Rockstar Games, and quickly transitioned to a producer role. After working on The Warriors, based on the 1970s gang movie, Nelson moved to New York in 2008 to help on the first Red Dead Redemption and to wrap up work on The Ballad of Gay Tony, an expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV.

Sam Houser, founder of Rockstar Games and a creator of the Grand Theft Auto series, asked Nelson then to help glue the games together. “Get rid of the fades to black between gameplay and cutscene,” Nelson recalls Houser saying, “to try and make the experience as seamless as possible.”

Many consider immersive worlds the primary appeal of video games, and Houser’s drive to build them has impressed creative minds.

“He is among the very few that so keenly understand, and in turn shape, our culture, and in doing so, has defined an entirely new medium,” Jony Ive, the designer behind the iPhone, said in an email. “He is a remarkable designer, storyteller and craftsperson.”

Nelson points to a powerful moment near the end of Red Dead Redemption when John Marston, its protagonist and a former outlaw, says goodbye to his family and goes to meet his death by throwing open the doors of a barn where soldiers lie in ambush. The crescendo was originally going to be a cutscene that players watch, but Nelson pushed to make it interactive.

“We don’t like to see your character doing what you would do as the player,” Nelson said. “The player should be able to attempt this futile last stand and let them feel it instead of just watching it play out in front of them.

“What we’re always grappling with is when the narrative needs to take precedence versus player agency and freedom, and which is most important at any given moment.”

It looks like another GTA, but I like GTA. I hope they lean more into the agency that comes along with heist setup missions rather than not, but even if they don't, I'll probably still enjoy it.