The open-world game is set in the same fictionalised US that serves as the backdrop for the rest of the series, with all the weapons and supercars you’d expect, but the world is more grounded and reactive than before – gone are the days when you could traverse the city like a god. Now, players’ actions have consequences. Walk down the street with a rifle, and the city will have something to say about it. More and more, the games are converging on real life, and non-player characters (NPCs) are acting... well, less like NPCs than ever. For some gamers, there’s a fear that what GTAVI gains in immersion, it loses in the chaos and anarchy that have been part of the series’ DNA since the outset, but for Rockstar, the goal is to create a world of total immersion, which reacts more realistically than ever to what you choose to make of it.
“We look back at our previous games with a critical eye and see where we want to evolve based on what we didn’t do as well as we would have liked to, either because we didn’t have the time, resources or technological capabilities, or in some cases things we just didn’t do as well or consider as fully as we could have,” says Nelson. “A lot of what we do is very iterative – we adjust a lot of things by feel based on what is working and what isn’t.”
The story has evolved, too, with higher stakes and characters grounded in all aspects of the world they inhabit. Players step into the shoes of Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos – an ex-military drug runner and a fighter fresh out of prison, respectively – and can choose to either play as a couple, or go off and cause chaos independently. This marks the first time that a GTA game has featured a playable couple in the lead role, which makes for some unique scenarios: on the way to a job, for example, players can cruise along the highway as Jason, or swap to Lucia in the passenger seat to scroll on the in-game phone. (Yes, there are working social media feeds – what satirical take on 2020s America would be complete without them?) When the job inevitably goes wrong and spirals into a car chase, the fluid system enables players to take the wheel in one moment, then fire on pursuers out of the passenger window the next. And afterwards, when it’s all blown over, they can skim across the waves on a jetski, admiring the Leonida seascape and leaping dolphins with their arms wrapped around their partner’s waist.
True romance like Jason and Lucia’s usually takes a back seat in GTA games, which, when it comes to matters of love and sex, are more commonly associated with strip clubs and underground sex work. But GTAVI is very consciously staged as “a Bonnie and Clyde-type narrative”, says Rupert Humphries, senior vice president of narrative at Rockstar. The trailers alone feature a slew of intimate cutscenes from Jason and Lucia’s own fugitive tale, which showcase the special attention that Rockstar’s art and technology teams have paid to how bodies look and feel – a hand on a ribcage, hips swinging on a packed dancefloor. For some gamers, the story might even serve as one of their earliest encounters with a romantic (albeit crime-ridden) relationship, where their choices can have repercussions that cut much deeper than Rockstar’s previous titles or “honour” systems that reward conscientious game playing.
Lucia is also the first fully fleshed-out female lead in a mainline GTA game. Before her, it’s male protagonists all the way down, dating back to 1999. (Grand Theft Auto’s 1997 debut featured a 50-50 split of male and female protagonists.) Previous instalments, including GTAV, drew criticism for misogynistic themes and underdeveloped female characters, but the series has evolved, and hopes to attract more female gamers to its previously male-heavy player base. In Lucia and Jason, they have created characters with rich, complex identities, while still leaving ample room for players to make them their own. “The thing we love about this medium is the way these characters aren’t empty avatars that you can do whatever you want with,” says Nelson. “Their story becomes a journey you share with them.”
The joy of GTA is as much about what players do with the moments in between story beats, though. And Rockstar offers what has been – up until now – as close to true freedom as you’re going to get within the confines of a virtual world. “We want to enable as much self-expression as possible,” says Nelson, “without losing the essence of the characters.” Take GTAV’s version of 2010s Los Angeles, for example: you could rampage through the streets with an assault rifle or a tank, cruise by the Pacific in an open-top car blasting Frank Ocean, or even relax with a round of golf. RDR2 pushed things further: between shootouts, the player-controlled protagonist Arthur Morgan could retreat into the wild to fish, hunt big game and make a campfire under the geographically accurate stars, or lose time drinking and gambling in remote frontier towns. Come down out of the mountains a few in-game weeks later, and he’d have grown a long beard and a mane of hair, and visibly lost some weight (or gained it, depending on your skill with a bow and arrow). Bar fights, meanwhile, would leave him bruised and scarred.
Source and more: https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-c...r-exclusive-deep-dive-game-unparalleled-world
