The GTA 6 Rumours

 The incorruptible

There no such thing as a secret in today's world, it would seem. Either because of the hot-hands of ISPs, the blabbing lips of store providers, or the loose tongues of actual developers; every single snippet of information around this Internet-focused world is privy to the eyes of someone they weren't mean for. And that is why there will perhaps never be a coming game release that will be a total surprise to the in-tuned fan out there, because for some reason every team has that one intern who's just begging for that 'rush' feeling when they break their NDA and betray the trust of their temporary supervisors and hardworking colleagues. Am I happy about such a state of the industry for giving me more to talk about? No, not in the slightest. I really wish that teams themselves were more communicative with the audience about where they were at and the things they were doing instead. But alas, that seems to be an impossibility and thus the stolen snippets of misheard rumours is all we have to sustain ourselves.

Such is the case with Grand Theft Auto Six, a game which was recently announced to absolutely be in development and has since elicited very strong opinions by just about everyone with a keyboard. "The five lessons that GTA 6 must learn from GTA 5, and 5 more it should forget about!", "Rockstar needs to bring out a different type of game before making GTA 6", "If Rockstar doesn't make it's entire cast of characters into Overwatch-style toons, it will fail!" and so on and so forth. I can be opinionated, no doubt; but I'd never presume to definitively cast my casual opining as the do-or-die bible upon a development studio who have regularly established themselves as the most definitive in the world. And to address specifically the one I saw most recently; Rockstar have tried to make other non free-roam games before, and people just laugh in their face for it. To this day I think Max Payne 3 was a brilliant game with some of the best multiplayer modes ever devised, but I'm the minority voice.

Though with a game as massive as Grand Theft Auto it's hard to take any leak as anything more than a cry for attention, many people seem to have taking it as unshakeable fact that GTA 6 will feature a female protagonist so let's start there. Yes, perhaps in direct response to many of the disparaging reviews that GTA 5 received for it's portrayal of female characters, six might just be sticking at least one front and centre. Apparently she will be one of a pair that travel around in a Bonnie & Clyde style relationship, and already I'm doubting these rumour due to how predictable they make the story. First of all; robbing themed narrative? Haven't we literally just done that? It's exactly what GTA V was about, the most major arcs of GTA Online focused, and the framing device for the gang drama of Red Dead Redemption 2; are Rockstar really going to focus on that for a fourth time? Secondly, Bonnie & Clyde crime duo? Hasn't 'It Takes Two' beaten Rockstar to the punch there? 'Oh, I wonder if the final mission is going to pit the partners against each other?'.

Long story short, I think that particular rumour is bunk; but the idea of a female protagonist does intrigue me. For no other reason than I expected it of Red Dead Redemption 2 and was a little bit let down. If Rockstar are making such a big change to their model based on responses by critics, I wonder if they'll also be willing to add individual reactivity depending on the character being played as. Such as maybe making it a tendency for police to respond less aggressively for non-violent crimes committed by the female protagonist, letting players get away with being a bit more of a public nuisance until they start getting out the guns. At the very least I expect that such a direction would not forget the inherently sardonic themes of the GTA franchise, which is part of the reason why an emotionally charged narrative beat is always a secondary objective next to opportunities for satire. (Which is another reason why I think the 'Bonnie & Clyde' idea works better for another Red Dead than a GTA.)

Another big rumour, which due to it's nature can slot right alongside that female heroine idea, regards not what the game is set to hold, but rather that which it once did during the planning stages. Apparently we were once looking at a project designed to be bigger and better than GTA V in every way shape and form, boasting 3 explorable cities and 4 protagonists. That was until Rockstar realised how much development time that would take away from GTA Online and decided it was better to feed that talentless cash cow than try to expand their limits. A lot of outlets are covering this as a quality versus quantity dynamic but I don't really know if there's enough information in this leak to be able to land on that issue. The implication is that Rockstar literally just got their teams together and went "Lets do the Death Star but bigger", but I don't think we've ever really seen Rockstar to go the Ubisoft/Force Awakens route when it comes to their games before, so I have to question either the validity of this leak or the prominence of this 'original idea'. (What was it; a footnote during the initial planning sessions?)

As the game currently exists, in the eyes of these rumours, there is a much paired back vision of the world that will have less than 4 protagonists and 3 cities. Which sounds all well and good and people can clap themselves on the back in the knowledge that Rockstar are going to make a good game rather than a big one because 'big project = bad'. If I were some sort of conspiracy theorist, however, I may offer the fact that this 'leak' actually revealed nothing at all and just said the game was going to be a ludicrously big idea and now is going to be a slightly smaller idea, essentially propagating a rumour that can persist on the strength of a disprovable negative. I'm not saying that this and other rumours around GTA 6 are a bunch of crock, but I will note the uptick of suppositions as to the development of GTA 6 have only really started piling up in the time since the development was officially announced rather than before when only the crackpots were waving their hands talking about it. Certainly makes for thought food.

In fact, this just in; my exclusive sources tell me that GTA 6 is going to be an MMO hybrid game with a cops-and-robbers inspiration to essentially make it a spiritual successor to APB, which in itself was designed as a GTA spiritual successor. Except, oh no; I just heard that they scrapped that idea for being crap and now are committing to something less crap. My source couldn't tell me what that new plan was, despite being very specific on the, now-defunct, previous details. You see my issue here? Right now the only true fact we can all say without a shadow of a doubt is that GTA 6 will facilitate the sequel to GTA Online. And, regrettably, that is likely going to see the only post-game support that GTA 6 ever receives in it's life cycle. Thank you, live-service culture, for making the single player into nothing more than chopped meat in the eyes of Rockstar.

Now obviously the rumours are not going to stop chugging anytime soon; there's significant clout to be made playing Nostradamus and guessing as to what way the Rockstar stars will align, but I urge perhaps not paying the utmost attention to it. For one point the development team at Rockstar will be more than happy to show off their work when it's ready to be seen, and jumping the gun isn't going to unveil any unspoken truth of the universe; but just let us into the unfinished works of a not-done game. The Grand Theft Auto Six I want is the game which is going to be the finished product Rockstar has consistently delivered to their impeccable standards. Standards that tend not to last the second the thing is shunted out of the womb, but for those few months until they abandon us, Rockstar are the greatest hosts a single player game lover could ask for.