Grand Theft Auto VI

A twenty-five minute first look at Grand Theft Auto VI premiered on Netflix ahead of YouTube (not a gull-on story like the time they got The Road director John Hillcoat to make a short film in Red Dead Redemption) showing off the various things you can do it in, including two whole examples of stealing cars. The first thing the protagonist couple do is head into and then shoot corrupt cops to get out of a drug deal gone wrong. We also see them have a meeting, deliver a getaway vehicle, do some James Bond underwater stuff and basejumping, and then a big bit as security for a corporate party under attack Die Hard style, which seems like a setup for a whole different game.

Visually it looks still kinda cel-shady and oddly clean so not my aesthetic as much as RDR.

The city looks nice, I could imagine Other Places doing something with it.

The couple are young up-and-comers, as the closing narration tells them these are their glory days, unlike V’s weary veterans or IV’s more sympathetic to me soldier dragged into the life or III’s vengeance-focused silent nobody. Or the little overhead sprites you played in the originals, which was as far as I really got as a player rather than an interested observer in a cultural phenomenon because playing crooks in a jokey way for that long doesn’t really appeal to me

(GTA Online has various subgenres with its expansions including the most recent Museum Art Heist scenario which is more my thing.)

But I do find the shift from a quick in-and-out power fantasy to big stories about the characters in between the various car chases and gun battles interesting.