Newshot Foreign Media Hands-On with *GTA 6*: The Protagonists' Relationship Needs Work, and Heists Require Strategy
IT Home, November 15 — The UK's Guardian published an article today exclusively revealing the behind-the-scenes story of GTA 6. The following are the main contents of the article:
For many people, it is still surprising to learn that the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series, a crime game steeped in American style, is actually primarily made in Scotland. Over the past 20 years, the series has been one of the world's most popular and most controversial video games.
But if you grew up in Edinburgh, Rockstar North has long been part of the city's cultural memory. In the 2000s, many local residents worked at the studio or spent brief stints there, and many of them served as game testers.
Today, the GTA development team has grown to nearly 5,000 people worldwide, but its core development force remains in the Holyrood area of Edinburgh, at a studio at the foot of Arthur's Seat.
The setting of the latest GTA game, however, is a far cry from the Scottish capital.
Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) takes players to Vice City in the state of Leonida, a parody of Miami, Florida. The city is awash in neon and excess, its surface filled with lavish parties and various social ills, while a criminal underworld lurks beneath, and Florida-style madness can erupt at any moment.
With one month to go before the game's official release, Rockstar's headquarters is unusually quiet. Many employees who worked on the game have finished their work and are on leave before launch. It is a rest they have earned after more than 10 years of development.
Those still at the studio are in a peculiar state: a work of art is complete, yet it has not yet been formally placed in the public's hands.
GTA 6 is expected to become the best-selling entertainment product in history, with industry forecasts putting first-year sales in the tens of millions of copies and revenue in the billions of dollars. By comparison, its predecessor GTA 5, released in 2013, has sold 230 million copies to date.
The game industry is currently going through a difficult period, with studio closures, layoffs and rising development costs occurring one after another, and the entire industry is hoping GTA 6 will lift market confidence. In a nearly empty office area on the ground floor of the headquarters, a screen displays a countdown to the game's release.
For many players, the 13-year wait for a new GTA has become unbearable.
When a GTA 6 promotional video had its high-profile premiere on Netflix, it even nearly overwhelmed the streaming giant's servers. The game's first trailer has already racked up 300 million views on YouTube alone.
Players around the world have already begun planning to take November 19 off to welcome this gaming event together. In an era when everyone is trapped in their own content bubbles by algorithmic feeds, a cultural event that lets players worldwide participate at the same time has become increasingly rare.
The atmosphere inside Rockstar North is slightly tense, and not only because GTA 6 is about to launch.
In Glasgow, Rockstar is also dealing with a closely watched labor arbitration case. Last year, the company dismissed 34 employees, who allege they were fired for participating in union organizing activities.
The case was originally scheduled to conclude in October, but will now run until around the official release of GTA 6. A few days before my visit to the studio, Jennifer Kolbe, head of Rockstar's publishing division, had just testified in court. Meanwhile, the dismissed employees and representatives of the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), to which they belong, were holding a protest outside the courthouse.
Now Kolbe sits before me, alongside 罗布 · 尼尔森 (Rob Nelson), co-studio head of Rockstar North and one of the three creative leads on GTA 6. They showed me the game that took more than 10 years to build. According to independent outside estimates, Rockstar has invested more than $1 billion in the game (IT Home note: roughly 6.69 billion yuan at current exchange rates), though the company has not confirmed this figure.
On screen, two young fugitive criminals, Jason and 露西亚 (Lucia), are heading from a bar to a nightclub. They cross downtown Vice City as the sunset fades and the streets are lit by colorful neon.
Jason is tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a T-shirt and shorts; 露西亚 has her hair in a ponytail and wears a fitted long-sleeved crop top. This kind of clothing is quite demanding on the figure, and very few people can pull it off easily.
As the two dance in the nightclub, they are surrounded by virtual figures in mesh tops that glow under UV light, writhing to the music.
Afterward, the two put on hats, sunglasses and bandanas to cover their faces, rob a jewelry store, and then flee into the night in a battered car. The trunk is stuffed with duffel bags full of cash and high-powered firearms. They even drive straight through a cornfield to evade police pursuit, reminiscent of the famous criminal couple Bonnie and Clyde.
露西亚 is the first female character to serve as a core protagonist in the history of the GTA series. The series has previously featured a range of criminal protagonists, from outright psychopaths such as Trevor in GTA 5 to surprisingly sympathetic characters such as Niko Bellic in GTA 4 and CJ in GTA: San Andreas.
GTA 6 tells the stories of both 露西亚 and Jason.
In some missions, players must use the perspective of a designated character, but most of the time they can freely switch between the two protagonists. When the two are apart, players can have them send each other text messages and make phone calls; when they are together, players can also arrange various date activities, such as going to the gym, a bar, a meditation retreat, or even robbing a liquor store together.
Players will be the ones steering the relationship between the two, and will need to nurture and maintain it. If they neglect the relationship, the game will produce corresponding consequences.
尼尔森 explained: "You go straight into their lives. This relationship is yours to manage, and it can also be lost through your neglect. As for whether they can keep their romantic relationship going, the decision is in your hands."
As Jason drives at high speed down a highway, leaning out the window to shoot at the tires of police cars chasing them, it is clear that this relationship design is not just a fun little feature, but an important attempt that could fundamentally change how the GTA series plays.
In the past, GTA was known for dark humor and purposeless violent chaos. Players could roam freely in virtual cities modeled on New York, Miami or 洛杉矶, stealing cars, running over pedestrians and creating all kinds of chaos.
GTA 5 in particular satirized almost every group in American society indiscriminately, from the U.S. government, narcissistic tech billionaires and spoiled young people in 洛杉矶, to rural residents, the super-rich and social drifters living in RVs — none were spared.
Past GTA games rarely asked players to genuinely care about any character in the game. But this time, the game not only wants players to care about the protagonists, but also wants players to personally take part in managing their relationship. When the two are together, players can even press a button to make them hold hands.
With GTA 6 having long existed only in various rumors, being able to see the game actually running is somewhat hard to believe.
The game entered some form of development as early as 2015, when the development team first traveled to Miami for field research. At the time, the game's internal codename was Project Americas, reflecting the team's initial plan to expand the game's setting across two continents in the Americas, though this concept was later abandoned.
It was not until December 2023 that Rockstar officially announced the game, and it has since delayed the release date twice.
I feel that Rockstar's developers have in effect been forced to put down their brushes.
Kolbe said with a hint of resignation: "If it were up to them, they would never stop working on this game."
尼尔森 also admitted: "It is very difficult to truly finish development. If you step away from the project for a while and put a little distance between yourself and it, you can look at it more objectively and tell yourself: 'I'm proud of what we've made.' But in the end, the game has to leave your hands, and you can only do your best within the allotted time."
Usually, when developers offer media hands-on sessions before a game's official release, they arrange a carefully designed gameplay sequence to show off the work's best side as much as possible.
We simply drove the characters around a densely populated Vice City, and almost any idea I suggested, the game responded to accordingly.
Stepping out of Jason and 露西亚's apartment, with its flamingo-pattern wallpaper, we were greeted by Florida sunshine. The first thing we saw was a woman walking her dog.
I asked whether I could pet the dog, and 尼尔森 pressed a button, and Jason spoke up: "Can I pet your dog?"
The woman replied: "Of course, he loves saying hello to everyone."
Jason then bent down and petted the little dog.
As players pass by pedestrians, they can hear conversations between them. If you interrupt a conversation, the other person might ask in confusion, "Have we met before?", or might just curse at you outright.
Later, I saw a seagull perched on a post near the beach and deliberately asked what kind of bird it was.
Jason promptly pulled out a pair of binoculars and observed the seagull. The system then recorded it in the wildlife guide and proudly told me that the game has 62 species of birds waiting for players to discover.
Of course, we also experienced the criminal gameplay. After all, this is still a GTA game.
But players accustomed to playing chaotic, violent criminals in the game may be surprised this time, because GTA 6 emphasizes tactical strategy more than any previous installment.
Jason and 露西亚 cannot simply steal any car they want, nor can they rob a bank whenever they feel like it. In the early game, they can only hotwire some low-end vehicles and pick simple locks, and only as the game progresses can they gradually take on higher-value, higher-risk criminal activities.
尼尔森 explained: "These two are a young couple whose lives have already fallen on hard times. From a narrative logic standpoint, it's impossible for them to show up and start causing chaos everywhere, making a name for themselves right away."
Article title: Foreign media hands-on with "GTA 6": The protagonists' relationship needs to be maintained, and robberies also require strategy
Body: Therefore, players can no longer suddenly pull out an assault rifle on a crowded street as they did in the past, scaring all passersby into fleeing in all directions. Instead, you must scout the location in advance and observe the target location. Whether it is a gas station or a boutique in a high-end shopping mall, a corresponding plan must be made.
Players can disable surveillance cameras or directly steal the surveillance footage; they can also look for back doors and safe combinations, trying to enter the target location without having to shoot anyone, and leave before witnesses arrive.
If these preparations are not made well, the situation will quickly spiral out of control.
After completing several small-scale criminal activities, we took Jason and 露西亚 to a heavily guarded jewelry store. 露西亚 pointed a pistol at the security guard. After a few seconds of tense standoff, the guard finally chose to surrender.
However, Jason, who was upstairs responsible for putting the money from the safe into a travel bag, encountered a security guard who was unwilling to surrender and directly opened fire in resistance.
The scene immediately descended into chaos. Jason had to knock the man down with the butt of his gun, while 露西亚 shouted loudly at the front of the store. The two then got on a stolen motorcycle and prepared to flee, but the police had already arrived.
The ensuing chase lasted for quite a distance, with police cars and helicopters in close pursuit.
In the end, the two successfully returned to their own car, hid the cash, changed their clothes, and then hid in the outskirts of the city to lie low for a while, waiting for the police to relax their investigation.
"GTA 6" is still a game centered on crime and criminals, but it clearly encourages players to act according to the characters' own personalities, rather than causing havoc aimlessly.
This design draws heavily on Rockstar's 2018 release "Red Dead Redemption 2". In that game, players play as an outlaw in the American West and gradually develop remorse for their violent life.
For 尼尔森, one of the biggest challenges during the development of "GTA 6" was how to guide players toward different ways of behaving without restricting their freedom. After all, restricting player freedom runs counter to Rockstar's long-standing creative philosophy.
Even with an unlimited budget, the development team cannot completely resolve a core contradiction in open-world games: how should a balance be struck between the story the developers want to tell and the player's freewheeling behavior?
尼尔森 said: "Crime has always been a core component of GTA, at least so far. We are working hard to ensure that we do not punish players just because they play in the way they have been familiar with in the past... But players' actions do indeed affect how the game develops."
I then asked whether this is the first work in the "GTA" series that attempts to guide players to feel empathy.
尼尔森 replied: "I think so. It comes from the story we want to tell. This is the first time we have added relevant mechanics to the GTA series to actively encourage players who are willing to do so to feel empathy."
The "GTA" series has long been the focus of controversy over violence in video games.
In "GTA 3", players could even hire sex workers and then run them over to get back the money they paid. In the 2000s, someone discovered a hidden explicit sex minigame in the code of "GTA: San Andreas", which triggered multiple class-action lawsuits in the United States.
"GTA: Vice City", released in 2002, is the spiritual predecessor of "GTA 6". At the time, Haitian American groups tried to block the sale of the game on the grounds that it contained violent depictions targeting that group.
U.S. courts have consistently upheld Rockstar's right to freedom of expression under the First Amendment, but these controversies also reflect a cultural double standard.
People generally accept that films and TV dramas can depict violence without implying that they encourage violence. For example, few people seriously think that "Breaking Bad" encourages viewers to manufacture methamphetamine.
But for video games, the situation is often different. Because players personally participate in the actions in the game, people often believe that the game is actually glorifying the violence and crime it depicts.
As video game graphics become more and more realistic, "GTA" has also begun to place greater emphasis on giving context and narrative meaning to violence in the game.
Looking back at the comically low-resolution, puppet-like figures in the "GTA" series in the 2000s, it is hard to imagine that they caused such huge controversy at the time.
At the same time, Rockstar's pursuit of cinematic storytelling and character development has continued to rise, and development budgets and team sizes have grown substantially. Compared with "GTA 5", today's development team has expanded fourfold.
The entire history of video game development is essentially the process of a group of creative technicians and developers constantly breaking through technical limitations. Using blocky character models and limited graphics processing power, they created game experiences that had been impossible in the past.
But today, the technical bottlenecks that once limited the development of the "GTA" series have basically disappeared, and developers can largely let go and act freely.
尼尔森 said: "The challenge we face now is how to shift from being limited by technical conditions in the past to being limited by human resources. For example, how much content can we actually produce in reality? This process seems to never end. People often say that if you encounter a problem, you can throw money at it, and to some extent that is true, but it does not guarantee that what is ultimately made will be good enough."
In fact, after such a long period of investment, Rockstar has indeed achieved in "GTA 6" a level of detail I have never seen in other games, even surpassing "Red Dead Redemption 2".
The latter itself already has extremely rich and realistic details, with developers even specifically modeling the horses in the game so that the horses' testicles can shrink in cold weather.
At a gas station in "GTA 6", 尼尔森 enthusiastically showed me the game's detailed food and drink animations.
Jason holds a donut in one hand and a pack of beer in the other, walking around the store. The liquid in the bottle shakes realistically with his movements, and the shelves are filled with magazines whose covers and contents are fully designed, which players can even take down and read.
And every passerby appearing outside the store has also been specially designed, even down to the clothes they wear.
So why invest such enormous effort in these details?
In the PlayStation 2 era, Rockstar basically released a new "GTA" every few years. Although the gameplay did not undergo fundamental changes between different entries, the constantly changing story settings and characters were enough to give the development team room to exercise their creativity.
By contrast, 13 years have passed since the previous "GTA" was released, during which game consoles have gone through two generations. Why spend so long just to create a game of such enormous scale?
尼尔森's answer is: if you are a developer with these resources, and the only developer in the world with these resources, wouldn't you choose to take on the most ambitious project?
Corbeil said: "They could have made a 'GTA 5.5', and it would have been completed faster. But in the end, that was not what they wanted."
尼尔森 nodded in agreement: "You have to dare to take big steps, not just repeat what came before."
"Grand Theft Auto 6" will launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19.
Related articles
- Live streaming platform Twitch is collaborating with "GTA 6" to launch a limited-time event, giving away more than 10,000 game activation codes
- Rockstar releases new gameplay footage of "GTA 6", showing multiple luxury sports cars driving on the streets
- Rockstar launches a new round of "GTA 6" game marketing, quietly opening a new account and releasing footage of Vice City beach roads
- The UK's "The Guardian" teases an exclusive "GTA 6" game feature to be published on November 14, revealing the real-world inspiration process for the Vice City map
- "GTA 6" preloading is about to begin, with code hinting at multiplayer clues
- Only 10 days until release: Rockstar unveils multiple new "GTA 6" screenshots, showcasing the local customs and scenery of Vice City