Grand Theft Auto has always been about one person causing chaos, or three taking turns. GTA 6 is about a couple, and Rockstar decided that word had to mean something. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the two protagonists can do essentially everything together in the open world. It might be the game’s most exciting innovation, and it was one of the decisions the team was most nervous about.
Bloomberg describes GTA 6 as sitting somewhere between GTA 5’s nihilism and Red Dead Redemption 2’s realism, and leaning towards the latter. You can still throw cash at strippers and plough through pedestrians. You’re also meant to genuinely care about its Bonnie-and-Clyde-inspired leads.
A Game About a Couple Has to Let Them Be One
Development lead Rob Nelson told Bloomberg there was real trepidation about the system. Letting both protagonists move through the world together requires complicated AI systems – the traditional kind, as Bloomberg points out, not ChatGPT – and years of work on all the ways it can go wrong. What tipped the balance was a group of people at the studio arguing that a game about a couple has to let them actually be...
