Grand Theft Auto VI will give players ways to show empathy for the first time in the series’ history, according to Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North. “We’ve tried for the first time in a GTA to provide mechanisms that encourage it, for those who want to,” Nelson told The Guardian. The paper’s games editor, Keza MacDonald, visited the studio in Edinburgh ahead of the game’s 19 November launch. Asked directly whether GTA 6 encourages empathy, he tied it to the plot rather than to a rulebook. “I would say that it’s a product of the story we’re trying to tell,” he said.
That story belongs to Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, whom Nelson described as “a younger couple with their backs against the wall”. The systems are optional, and many of them are small. Jason can ask a passer-by for permission before petting their dog, for example, and people on the street react when the player interrupts their conversations. None of this replaces the series’ usual chaos, although it gives players who want a gentler run through Leonida something to work with, a shift that has been building since Rockstar’s first trailer and reveal.
Jason and Lucia’s relationship is the system Rockstar is betting on
The biggest of those mechanics is the relationship itself. When they are apart, Jason and Lucia call and text each other, and when they are together they can go on dates to the gym, a bar or a meditation retreat. A liquor store stick-up also counts as a date, and a dedicated button lets the pair hold hands. “The relationship is yours to nurture or yours to lose,” Nelson said, adding that whether it stays romantic is up to the player.
Neglecting the relationship has consequences, according to the preview, although Rockstar has not said how far they go. Players who have no interest in romance can ignore the system entirely. They can switch between Jason and Lucia for most of the game, while some story moments lock players into one character’s perspective for a stretch. Rockstar’s second trailer leaned heavily on the same partnership, and it remains the clearest official look at the pair together.
Jason and Lucia also start out as small-time criminals. Early on, they can only hotwire cheap cars and pick basic locks, and bigger jobs come later in the story. Before a robbery, players can scout the location, find a back door or a safe code, and disable security cameras or take their footage. In the demo Rockstar showed the press, a jewellery store robbery without that preparation ended with a guard opening fire and a police chase across half a district.
A Criminal Profile tracks players who go beyond what is necessary
Crime, Nelson said, is still “a fundamental part of GTA”, although he added “at least up until now, it has been”. Rockstar is “trying to make sure we’re not punishing people for playing the game they are used to”, he said, while promising that “your actions will have some effect on how the game plays out”. Players can still cause traffic jams, shove pedestrians and flee the scene of an accident.
What changes the picture is a new system called the Criminal Profile. It tracks how violent and malicious a player’s crimes are, in a similar way to the honour system in Red Dead Redemption 2, and it is not a simple good or bad meter. A hit-and-run or an escape before the police arrive is fine, according to Nelson. The problems start “when you go beyond what is necessary on a consistent basis”, he said, and Rockstar has not said whether the profile changes missions, rewards or the ending.
Rockstar chose ‘big swings’ over a quicker GTA 5.5
Rockstar could have released a “GTA 5.5” and done it faster, executive Jennifer Kolbe suggested in the interview, but the studio chose a bigger rebuild. Nelson said the studio had to “take big swings”, because the sequel “can’t be just more of the same”. The research behind Leonida began with trips to Miami in 2015, and Nelson said he visited clubs, spent time in bars in the Florida Keys and rode along with police officers through South Beach. That research shows in how closely Leonida’s streets resemble real Miami.
The same attention to detail reaches the smallest moments of play. In the press demo, Jason ate a doughnut while drinking a beer, and a six-pack he carried sloshed as he ran. Players can also spot birds through binoculars and log them in a wildlife logbook that holds 62 species. MacDonald described the game as “gratuitously, absurdly detailed, from the macro level to the micro”.
Players will be able to test those systems within days. Pre-loading has been open since 10 November and needs about 212GB of free space, while reviews are due on 18 November. Unlock times have been set for every region, and Take-Two has put the price at $70 to $80. Grand Theft Auto VI launches on 19 November on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, 13 years after Grand Theft Auto V.
