Grand Theft Auto VI - The Press Play Gaming Review

There's a mission part way through Grand Theft Auto VI where a fundamental rift between Lucia and Jason comes to a head. This particular difference of opinion was small in the beginning, but left unchecked, it festered beneath the surface until external forces yanked it to the fore. It is resolved eventually of course, but in this moment, the difference is irreconcilable. 

What stood out to me was not so much the exquisitely designed cutscene, the deeply emotive voice acting, nor the subtlety of the facial expression animation at a level of detail never before seen in a video game. No, it was the gameplay impact it had left afterwards; a moment of ludonarrative harmony that left me reflecting on the power of this interactive medium to cut through to the very essence of who we are as human beings.

The very core of GTA VI is the relationship between its two lead protagonists. Sure, there's an ever escalating series of bombastic set piece missions to make your way through, countless bullets to fire and explosions to walk coolly away from, and of course vehicles to steal for your own pleasure. But the heart? That beating rhythm will always belong to Lucia and Jason.

The love these two share is undeniable. Their '03 Bonnie & Clyde partnership transcends any back and forth between Rockstar characters past. Not Michael and Franklin's mentor/mentee bond, Michael and Trevor's sordid past, nor even Arthur Morgan and John Marston's complex brotherly relationship can compare to just how full of history and pathos these two ride-or-die lovers share. 

There is so much you can do in this massive, intricately detailed world. Go to the gym. Case a jewellery store. Take a long walk down the beach. Spend time in a nightclub. Make a sandwich. All of this can be done playing as either protagonist, with the other partner at your side. While you can go it alone, together is easily the best way to experience the game in its entirety; so many subtle animations, glances shared, actual gameplay assistance gained. Much like the real world, everything is better when you share it with the one you love.

So when I was asked to choose who I agreed with in this rift between these two characters I'd come to admire so deeply, all I could do was put the controller down and lay back. The decision was agonising; both had excellent points, and because I had seen and understood why both came at this question the way they had, I found it almost impossible to choose. However, the show must go on as they say, so I followed along with Lucia, genuinely unsure how this was going to play out.

What came was an excruciating feeling of loneliness as Lucia went about her day. Jason needed time to cool off, which meant we couldn't simply hang out as we had done for countless hours prior. There was no calling up my boo to have him speed down the highway while I hung out the window shooting at the cops chasing us. I simply had to make do on my own, progressing the story to the point where the two could reconcile, alone.

It's been 8 years since the release of Rockstars last game in Red Dead Redemption 2, and 13 since GTA V. It's clear the studio has gone through a period of growth in this time. Where GTA V was nihilistic and oftentimes resembled satire fit for a teenager, GTA VI resembles a story for adults. It's built for a mature audience. One that can understand subtext. One that can comprehend that sometimes words unspoken mean just as much as words that are.

Gaming as a medium has been around now for many decades; since 1972 if we're talking commercially available games in Pong with the Magnavox Odyssey, 1958 if we're talking the first purely for entertainment program Tennis For Two, or even the late 40s / early 50s with the invention of the "cathode-ray tube amusement device" and subsequence programming demonstrations.

Despite the fact that some - often those who are older and do not engage in play much at all, let alone digitally - still talk about the hobby like it is purely a distraction meant for (or worse, corrupting of) children, games can be a deeply profound, positive influence on people of all ages. The stories they tell, the deeper emotions both felt and wielded by the designers, and the systems used to convey both, have the capability to leave an impression stronger than almost any other medium, thanks to the combination of passive engagement and participatory interactivity.

There are many games people point to as having accomplished this feat. The (recently shut down by EA) studio Bioware produced several of these, from Dragon Age to Mass Effect, in large part thanks to their beloved characters who felt like lifelong friends by the time their series' concluded. Nier Automata tore asunder the hearts of those who related to the all encompassing existentialism reflected in its main narrative, side stories, background lore and final choice. Outer Wilds left those who were enchanted by its curiosity-led revelations fundamentally altered, by the universe spanning yet deeply personal conclusion to be found in the melancholy of a campfire cooking marshmallows. 

Will GTA VI - possibly the biggest media release of our modern times, rivalling Marvel, The Kardashians, Star Wars, Taylor Swift, Mickey Mouse, take your pick - be able to hit that bar? Will it make people cry, laugh out loud, leave scars on the souls of its tens of millions of players? Can it change the hearts and minds of its players through satire and wit, opening up their eyes to the possibilities of a better world?

Right now, we sit in the liminal time just between the crescendo of peak hype for what exists in countless people's minds, and the reality of the game people have been waiting with bated breath for since childhood's spent rampaging in the streets with tanks and assault rifles. It's a game of enormous proportions, weight, expectations, possibility and so much more.

Or, it's just another game.

My wife and I have been watching Boston Legal lately. Having never seen it before, it's approach to many headline topics of the day are still incisive and somehow perennially and sadly relevant, 20+ years on. Alan Shore's forever captivating speeches never cease to disappoint. The "inconveniences" accepted alongside the loss of freedoms that came with the War On Terror highlight how they were always going to be weaponised against the very people they were alleged to protect. The arguments of corporate lobbying and money in politics being a problem that needs addressing feels quaint in 2026. Guns; abortion; healthcare; free speech. All compelling arguments that, in a country that worked properly, might have actually had some progress in the intervening decades, if people paid attention, and acted upon it.

Grand Theft Auto as a franchise has spent the same amount of time using it's tact of satirisation in much the same way. 3's crime sprees, Vice City's 80s excess, San Andreas' focus on race in the 90s, IV's take on the American dream, and V's late stage capitalism. All of it is meant to be holding up a mirror with the intent to entertain, but also give cause to reflect. How much effect has this had, all told?

The reason I could make up the first 7-13 paragraphs of this piece despite not having touched the game at all is because we already know what's coming. GTA VI sits somehow at the nexus of the safest bet in video games while also holding an ambition no other development studio could possibly accomplish (or afford). It's a game that is simultaneously everything and nothing to everyone and no-one. You're going to see some variation of what I've written here in nearly every review, because that's the way this works.

Everything that's been building for so many years is going to explode across pop culture. The reviews will pour in. There will be YouTube videos and Instagram reels and Tiktoks of some random piece of rage bait. There will be guides, so many guides. There will be stories written about every little thing that could possibly be written about because the entire world's attention is up for grabs. And there will be AI regurgitations of those stories and those guides and those videos and those reviews. It will be a takeover of huge proportions on all feeds, inundating everyone on a feedback loop of all consuming content and it will be totally and utterly unavoidable.

And then, it will be gone. Some other thing will come along, more real world horrors and unending corruption and AI and war and chaos. GTA VI will still be there of course, chugging along just beneath the surface as all these things tend to end up, with something or other popping into the Eye of Sauron's view now and again.

Maybe it will be a thing that will push enough of the right people over the edge into seeing the world as it really is and do something about the endless list of injustices happening in our world. Or maybe it will be just another thing, tacked on to an endless list of entertainment to distract and amuse us while the world burns.