GTA 6 should be like GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2, not GTA 5
We’re still waiting on a GTA 6 release date, with rumours abounding that Rockstar’s next open-world crime game could be set in Vice City and feature a female protagonist. Whether GTA 6 will be wild and wacky or sombre and mature remains to be seen, but I’m hoping for the latter. After almost ten years of madcap GTA Online updates, I want something closer to the mood and brutality of GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2, not the outlandish fun of GTA 5.
GTA 4 was ahead of its time. Grey, rainy, and filthy, its version of Liberty City played perfect host to a form of protagonist and narrative that previous Grand Theft Auto games – previous games, full stop – were never brave enough to embrace. Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t played it, but the ending of GTA 4 ultimately sees Niko Bellic, irrevocably traumatised by the Yugoslav Wars, choose between either his cousin, Roman, or his potential love interest, Kate. If he chooses Roman, Kate is unceremoniously killed and any chance Niko may have had at a better, happier life dies with her. If he chooses Kate, it is Roman who gets killed, and Kate refuses to ever speak with him again, once more leaving him alone in the world. After all the killing, stealing, and bloodshed that would normally elevate a GTA character to the top of the criminal underworld, Niko’s life is worse at the end of GTA 4 than it is at the beginning. It’s a bold and atypical rags-to-rags story.
Likewise, Red Dead Redemption 2, which begins its story a long time after the van der Linde gang has started to disintegrate. This is not a story of their rise and their fall, or really even their fall – after the Blackwater massacre and the implied, subsequent infighting, by the time we step into the boots of Arthur
Read more on pcgamesn.com
