It’s okay not to be impressed by GTA 6 – Reader’s Feature

A reader takes issue with the Netflix extended look at GTA 6 and questions the apparent lack of new ideas, despite the inarguably excellent graphics.

More than once today I’ve seen someone say that GTA 6 may be the best that video game graphics ever get, at least for several decades. That doesn’t seem likely under normal logic, where technology constantly improves, but given the rising cost of hardware and making games it could be true. The budget for GTA 6 is said to be anything from $1 billion to $3 billion and that means it’s at least twice as expensive as the next most expensive, maybe more.

There is inflation to take into account, and I’m sure the graphics will improve when we have holodecks or whatever, but in terms of technology we can imagine (and afford) right now this could well be it.

And it looks amazing, you can see every penny on screen, so… why was I bored about five minutes into the Netflix footage? GTA isn’t my favourite franchise, but I’ve definitely enjoyed previous games, including GTA 5 and as well as Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. This is basically GTA 5 but with even better graphics, so I should like it. But actually, that’s what puts me off.

At times the footage almost made the game look like a remake of GTA 5, even though it’s a different city with different characters. I didn’t see a single new gameplay idea in the whole 26 minutes. Maybe they didn’t have base jumping before, I don’t remember [they did, it first appeared in GTA 4’s DLC in 2009 – GC] but there was definitely nothing that seemed like a big new idea that you’d want to build a new game around.

I mean, from an artistic point of view, what is the point of the game? Just to max out what can be done with the graphics? If it’s to tell a story they’ve already described it as inspired by Bonnie and Clyde story, so we all know how that’s going to end. And while Lucia seemed interesting Jason already seems like a charisma vacuum, from everything they’ve shown so far.

Maybe the story will be all right, I haven’t played it – obviously, but I really doubt it’ll justify being 80 hours long, like Rockstar says the game is. Maybe the combat will be better this time, because you can’t tell that from the video. Rockstar hasn’t bothered to improve it in the last 25 years though, so I don’t know why they’d suddenly get the urge now. But hope springs eternal, I guess.

I’m not even saying GTA 6 will be a bad game. I assume it will be at least as good as GTA 5, so that guarantees it will be quality. What I’m saying is that I’m not impressed or excited about it. It seems to be exactly the same stuff we’ve been getting for over two decades now, with no attempt to innovate whatsoever.

GC were right to point out how bad conversations are in cars, where it looks like the car is talking to itself. I can’t believe they couldn’t come up with another way to make that look and feel more interesting, but instead they spent quite a bit of time on it in the video and it all seemed to work exactly like GTA 5.

Getting caught up in drug deals and robberies… I guess that is your classic GTA mission. I imagine there’s a lot of others that are basically ‘drive somewhere and shoot someone’ but can we not have anything new? You want to show off the classics, I get that, but you had 26 minutes and the whole world watching, was there nothing more surprising they could’ve shown than a Die Hard knock-off?

Maybe they’re just keeping their powder dry. Maybe they want you to see the really wild ideas yourself, but with over 30 minutes of official footage now – plus all those stupid leaks – I haven’t seen anything approaching a new idea. Unless you count the fact that in one area of town everyone’s nude, for some reason.

For $3 billion couldn’t Rockstar have afforded to go wild with at least a few things? Throw some crazy ideas out there, safe in the knowledge that the game was going to make 10 times its budget in the first five minutes. If GTA 6 is too scared to do anything but play it safe what chance does the rest of gaming having? So no, I’m not impressed. And at this point I don’t expect to be.

By reader Focus

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