The GTA VI Trailer Released (Discussion)

I was scrolling through YouTube last night before going to sleep, and I saw some videos pop up of people talking about GTA VI, so headed to the search bar with great enthusiasm - sweaty palms, and shaking with excitement - I typed in the words and sure enough, they did, in fact, release it. I don't know why, but I thought it wasn't dropping until the 6th, but there we go.

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Here's the trailer, and it looks deadly. The game seems to be taking a lot of influence from the internet/ YouTube/ streamer/ TikToker culture. By way of showcasing a bunch of short clips and things like that from NPCs, in game.

As well as this, they seem to going for the multiple character storytelling like GTA V, but this time, they are going for a bit of a Bonnie and Clyde thing.

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Where It's Set
Based on the colours used in the art, plus the palm trees, it's obvious that it's set in Vice City, which is a location in the world of GTA based in Florida.

The first time we visited this location, we played as Tommy Vercetti (Ray Liotta) in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City which was released in 2002, then a few years later another game came out called Vice City Stories which was released in 2006.

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I played every GTA game upon release back in the day, including both Liberty City Stories, and Vice City Stories. They were both smaller in scope than the mainline games, and I think they were intended to be exclusive to the PSP - The small handheld device - but they ended up getting released on the PS2 console.

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I think they were good games, although, they would have been classed as DLC by today's standards, but rather than add on some additional content they had to release them as their own titles. Rockstar managed to release these games just before the switch from PS2 to Xbox 360, and PS3. I think there may have been word of a San Andreas Stories game, but it was canceled so they could instead focus on GTA IV, which was the big -mainline - release of that era of console.

I'd be interested in revisiting these games before the 2025 set release of this new entry into the Grand Theft Auto franchise. It will be a good trip down nostalgia lane, but also it would be good to get familiarized with the map/ characters/ gangs again before jumping back in.

Upon the release of GTA V, we saw some nods and subtle callbacks to GTA: San Andreas which was the first game set in Los Santos.

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Will They Learn From Their Mistakes?

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Rockstar has managed to strike gold on numerous occasions with the release of their titles, but it was GTA V that unlocked a new chamber of that mine, in the form of shark cards - which are micro-transactions aimed at people who want cool stuff without having to grind for it.

They have milked the games community for over a decade now, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence to suggest it's slowing down. New content is released for GTA V regularly - and at that - there are always new things to buy.

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The Red Dead Problem
The player base for the online portion of Red Dead quickly fell off the map for Rockstar. While the single-player portion of the game is amazing, if not, the best modern gaming experience of the last few years. The online was severely lacking. Not only did it take a few weeks to release, which wasn't even that bad, considering it gave the player base a chance to get lost in the world of the single player.

I remember the excitement among my friends when the game came out, it was an amazing time. Getting online with it was also very exciting, but the main problem was, they were pushing micro-transactions, without even adding much to purchase.

Very quickly - within a couple of weeks - people realised that there really wasn't much going on, in the game. This came out as a problem for Rockstar, because, no players, meant no micro-transactions, and no micro-transactions meant no cash flow to fund new content.

Rockstar gave up on Red Dead Online within a few months and went back to GTA V to focus on that game's economy.

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That Problem - Hopefully - Won't Happen Again
I loved Red Dead, and the online portion was good too. But, Rockstar must have figured there isn't much room to get creative in the Wild West. They, obviously, didn't want to include flying pink horses that shoot lazars out of their arse, so the pool of ideas was pretty slim.

Me and some friends discussed - in detail - plenty of things that could have been added to the game to potentially bring people back. But, who were we supposed to pitch these ideas to? Also, how? We thought of outright emailing Rockstar, but would they listen? Probably not.

I am afraid that GTA VI coming out, may release its online portion without much going on to start with, in the hopes of returning to it later on and slowly filling it out. I think though, if they do that, there could be an issue as far as player base goes. I don't like micro-transactions in games, but I know a lot of people have spent a lot of money on GTA Online so far, and I wonder would some of those players be willing to move on to this new game and leave that one in the past.

As is common with these sorts of games, it's hard to go back to the old ones when the new game comes out. Not just for graphical enhancements, but also for gameplay improvements. So that is one thing I'll be keeping an eye on, as the release of this game is upon us.

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All in all, the hype for this game is already through the roof, and the closer we get to a release date, the more the anticipation will build. I'm unsure about how people will react to the new game, as far as leaving behind all the money they may have spent on GTA Online, but that remains to be seen. The internet ensures that everyone's voice is hard, and to be fair, gamers' voices are usually the loudest in any online space.