As we wait with bated breath for the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer that’s coming subsequent month, we’ve been replaying a number of the older video games and attempting to think about what form a contemporary GTA would take. The world has modified irrevocably since GTA V launched in 2013: whether or not you’ve accredited of them or not, it’s plain that there have been big social and political modifications within the final ten years.
Politicians have virtually grow to be proof against scandal. Brands are promoting themselves in ever extra outlandish methods. Following the trauma of the pandemic, biting recessions, and numerous different nonsenses, it typically looks like a collective insanity has taken maintain of the human race. In brief, the road between the brash, hyper-exaggerated actuality of GTA looks like a tame mockery of the actual world now, in a lot the identical approach that The Day Today and Brass Eye at the moment are barely distinguishable from what constitutes at the moment’s information media.
Aside from the societal modifications it’ll should navigate, there are a variety of mechanical, gameplay facets of the older video games that kinda suck now, to not point out the horrendous expertise that GTA Online has grown exponentially into through the years. So, I sat down with my colleague and fellow lifelong GTA fan Mark Warren to hash out an inventory of issues we predict the following GTA ought to hold, and issues it ought to depart up to now:
As a bonus, right here’s an inventory of issues I desperately hope we see in GTA 6:
GTA IV’s DRIVING MODEL
It took a variety of flak on the time, however GTA IV’s driving mannequin is elegant. Those huge American saloon vehicles have a heft and weight to them that feels so sensible and tactile when throwing them across the tight corners of Liberty City. It was softened considerably for GTA V, which feels much more arcadey in its dealing with, however I’d argue that IV’s uncompromising car physics actually linked you to that tarmac, and because of this, made that world really feel all of the extra actual.
GTA IV’s PHYSICS
The euphoria physics engine was a revelation again within the day: procedurally generated character animations that made NPCs react and behave with horrifying realism in response to object contact. Like the driving mannequin, it gave Niko Bellic some weight as a participant avatar: somebody who really felt connected to the bottom at his toes. It additionally gave rise to a few of GTA IV’s finest humour: the best way peds would flail round on the lookout for handholds if you happen to barged them over, or the best way they’d seize on for expensive life and get dragged alongside as you sped off of their motor.
Again, it was toned down massively for GTA V, which was an enormous disgrace for my part.
GTA SAN ANDREAS’ SENSE OF SCALE
Ok, so, clearly GTA V has a much bigger map. GTA IV has a vastly extra detailed and complex map. But San Andreas has by no means fairly been surpassed by way of how huge it feels. With three decently sized cities and land sufficient between them to necessitate miles of freeway, the journey of discovery San Andreas set us on was actually epic. Even if it was largely smoke and mirrors, however what recreation isn’t?
Freeway driving was an enormous a part of V, however other than Los Santos itself, there wasn’t a lot in the best way of civilisation past town limits, other than just a few small hamlets and a little bit of trade. The Los Santos Highway type of appears like a street to nowhere particularly. I hope GTA VI has not less than two cities to drive between.
GTA ONLINE’S CONTENT DROPS
I’m a single participant man. Nothing ruins video games greater than different individuals, so far as I’m involved. But I’ve seemed on with envy on the seemingly countless updates and expansions that feed their approach into GTA Online. Many of them would work as single participant tales, and have reprisals of traditional characters from earlier video games. It’s sufficient to make you overlook that GTA Online is a typically horrid place to be, particularly if you happen to don’t have an infinite quantity of spare time to plough into it.
I do know it’s not sensible to anticipate that degree of long-tail assist for the only participant, but when Rockstar might syphon a smidgen of its infinite money reserves into some Witcher 3 type DLC quests and gadgets, and possibly a few full-fat single participant expansions, I might be able to allow them to examine my pockets.
GTA V’s SENSE OF FUN
The final mainline GTA recreation was one thing of a course correction from the drab, virtually miserable setup of GTA IV. Don’t get me flawed: I really like IV for that. Its daring selections, its participating, status TV narrative that sat someplace between The Sopranos and The Beano by way of its tone.
But IV was roughly about failing to stay the American dream, in a metropolis that swallows individuals up and leaves them as husks. GTA V, however, is pure Californication: without delay advanced and superficial, intoxicatingly stunning and grotesquely vapid. It realised that what GTA gamers actually love greater than something is with the ability to simply let unfastened.
