Beginning in 1997, grand theft auto It’s a platform for Rockstar to explain the version of satire. The original GTA cast is a gallery of nihilistic injustice, with corrupt cops and shady politicians. The poster in the game’s box says it was co-developed by “The Hand of Satan,” which marks the first of many middle fingers that Rockstar tasted. However, in Grand Theft Auto 4 and the protagonist Niko Bellic, the rock star becomes more sympathetic and more humanist.
The caricatures of rock stars from American and Western cultures feel more vivid and keen as they see it through Nico’s eyes, who have a personal code of ethics and virtue, even if they are a bit twisted and rooted in trauma. It’s not a game about everything and everyone’s awful. There are good things in the world of GTA 4, but they are compressed and suffocated by the bad guys. That’s a compelling story. It’s more honest and well observed.
Grand Theft Auto 5 (I’m talking purely about single-player stories) has two major issues. First of all, it’s a script. In about 40 hours, Michael, Franklin and Trevor are all screaming and claiming at each other. That’s what they do when they first meet. That’s what they do on every mission. That’s what they do towards the end of the game. Stephen Ogg gives one of the most lively performances in recent gaming history, but the rock star wastes it by repeating the same scene 20 times.
In GTA 5, everyone hates each other, everyone is terrifying and meaningless. Michael’s wife is tricking him. His therapist is only interested in getting paid and selling Michael’s story to Vinewood. Franklin fights his aunt. Trevor’s mom hates him. It’s all one big plague pit and no one has anything complicated. In addition to being a terrifyingly simple type of satire, this dramatically inerts Grand Theft Auto 5.
Red Dead Redemption, released by Rockstar three years ago, and Max Payne 3 in 2012, both have characters with ambition and drive, and want to do something or be something. Grand Theft Auto 5 has only one point. Everyone sucks – and do it over and over, from the opening cutscene to the final mission.
You can understand why it feels like it can be ignored or, on the contrary, you can understand it as if it were actually the point of the game. Mechanically and empirically, the GTA 5, like San Andreas, is based on abandonment and does what you want to do without worrying about the outcome. With that in mind, it makes sense to characterize the world as a place where nothing matters. It’s a playground. If you want to shoot all the people over there and then blow up their cars, it’s totally fine. They are scary, so is your personality.
But that’s the second biggest problem with the GTA 5. The combat system is designed to make it impossible to reduce. The gun is weak. The enemy is clever. You die easily. If the writing of GTA 5 is intended to allow you to indulge in all the sandbox vices, the mechanic will bring you back. So, Grand Theft Auto 5 doesn’t have the nuances or storytelling of GTA 4, but there’s also no sandbox game recreation for GTA 3 and Vice City. Even if you accept the GTA 5 in that terminology, you are not going to take care of it. It should be cynical and nihilistic, that’s the point – it still doesn’t work.
However, the GTA 5 was 12 years ago, and up until then, Rockstar has created an incredible Red Dead Redemption 2. Given that these games are co-created by hundreds of people, it seems strange to try and develop a “rockstar” studio style and voice in a way that films studio style and voice. But between GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, it feels like a rock star. It encouraged some kind of intense emotional growth, just as it was characterized as an individual.
I’ll shoot scenes from GTA 5 and RDR 2. It’s hard to believe that the same person is involved. It’s not just dialogue and drama. That’s how it plays. Grand Theft Auto 5 feels stiff and hugging you. RedDead Redemption 2 is very expressive. The magic in this game is that despite being able to “go anywhere” and “do anything”, Arthur Morgan’s characterization is very persuasive, and the more you want to behave, the more you want to behave, the more you want to behave. And with everything you do, you are building characters and building stories while exploring your agency and discovering the allowances the game offers you from an interaction perspective. It’s freeform, but it’s never empty.
That gives the GTA 6 hope. So far, from what we know, the entire game is rooted in Jason and Lucia’s relationship. The characters in Grand Theft Auto 5 act like they don’t care about anything, nothing matters, and therefore many missions feel that there is no direction or meaning.
On the contrary, one thing that makes RDR 2 work well is that Arthur loves and wants to protect the rest of Vanderlinde’s gang. When he does something frightening, it feels like it’s driven by something moral or by a greater, noble intention. And it gives everything to more meaning and weight. The same can be said for Niko Bellic. The GTA4 loses this thread if it lasts for a long time, but at least in business hours, it feels like Nico is trying to live a better life for himself and Rome.
If Jason and Lucia have this love and interdependence, I want to believe that everything you can do with GTA 6 somehow leads to it. No matter the context, or whether it matches the premise or character, an open world game where you can “do anything” quickly becomes boring and makes your soul feel a bit off – junk games. Jason and Lucia’s relationship hopefully can give the GTA 6 a center. This is something gravity that brings the rest of the game closer to it. GTA 6 gives you reason to believe it’s not driven by the same meaninglessness as Grand Theft Auto 5.
Even broader, I would like to think that the 2025 Rockstar is a Red Dead Redemption 2 Rockstar than the GTA 5 Rockstar. Complicating this, I felt that both Grand Theft Auto 4 and Original Red Dead represent the emergence of what I call “better” rock stars. And now it’s GTA 5. It’s possible that GrandTheftAuto has become a series where Rockstar tries to denote itself. But I don’t want it.
