GTA 6 needs to be more progressive and less edge lord – Reader’s Feature

metro.co.uk:

A reader questions what attitude Rockstar will take with GTA 6 and if it’ll try to be more progressive in terms of politics and representation.

Despite the biggest leak in gaming history, we still know nothing important about Grand Theft Auto 6. We know it’s set in Vice City and that the main characters are a man and woman inspired by the legend of Bonnie and Clyde. But those are just details, they don’t tell us anything about the story, the tone or the gameplay – although the leaked videos suggests that hasn’t changed in any major way.

What I’m interested in is the tone though, the attitude the game will take and whether it will be different from the previous ones. We know that the lead writer, and a lot of the others, have left Rockstar Games since Red Dead Redemption 2, so, really, we have no idea what their replacements might be like. But also, the world is a very different place now, compared to 2013.

GTA 5 being nine years old and still selling strong is impressive for a lot of reasons but not only is the gameplay becoming outdated but so to is its view of the world. Gender issues weren’t a mainstream concern in 2013 and GTA 5 already has major issues in its portrayal of women, let alone anyone else.

All too often GTA makes crass jokes under the cover of satire but it’s not fooling anyone. Rockstar seems to realise this too as they’ve made changes to the game since, via patches, in terms of removing transgender ‘jokes’. It didn’t have to do that, since if nothing else the transphobic elements are easy to miss if you don’t go to specific points on the map, so the fact they did make the efforts suggests a change in approach.

Despite Grand Theft Auto being the biggest media franchise in history this will be the first time