Grab a bucket, because GTA 6 is springing leaks in every direction. A group (individual?) called Cyberleek has been publishing seemingly genuine clips from Rockstar's latest for two days now, giving us our first glimpses of gameplay a week ahead of the big Netflix reveal happening on August 27.
There's electricity in the air around GTA 6—easily the most anticipated game in history—but I wasn't actually excited to play it until yesterday, when one of the leaked clips (which we won't be linking here, but isn't difficult to find) showed Jason, one of the game's dual protagonists, climbing into a car.
As he takes control, the UI shows what seems to be status symbols for the vehicle: its HP and its current gas.
Heeeelllllll yea. I hope you actually have to pull up to a gas pump and remember which side the tank is on. I hope you can stash a spare canister in the trunk, and I hope that canister will violently explode if it eats a bullet.
Systems. Simulations! This is exactly the stuff that GTA needs to meaningfully evolve.
I loved all the crunchy little details of Red Dead Redemption 2 that inched it toward a proper life sim—eating, drinking, bathing, and camping under the stars. I was worried Rockstar would pull away from this kind of thinking after some folks complained endlessly about crafting bullets one at a time, only holding two guns, or how long it took to loot bodies.
The point was to introduce meaningful choices to Rockstar's low-friction power fantasies: Do I have time to loot bodies before the law shows up? How badly do I want better ammo? It doesn't seem like GTA 6 will be nearly as methodical, but I'm glad to recognize some of Arthur Morgan in Jason Duval.
Elsewhere in the leaks, we see options to "greet" or "taunt" locals. When the cops are called, we're told how much information they actually have about the player: face, clothes, and vehicle. That's interesting: Will cop chases amount to more than outrunning slower cars and avoiding vision cones? Maybe if you're in a personal vehicle (like Aruthur's horse), you can swap outfits, ditch the car, then lose the cops in plain sight. That would instantly become the coolest thing I've done in a GTA game.
It's about time GTA's worlds are as reactive as they are visually convincing. Rockstar's lavishly-crafted distractions tend to ring hollow—it's nice that GTA 5 lets you play golf and run a triathlon, but how many times did you actually do that?
If the point is to be immersed, I want reasons to live a convincing life in Vice City. Give me a hunger meter, make me better at punching if I work out (San Andreas-style), add stakes to my crime fantasy with debts to manage and a mortgage to pay monthly. Give me relationships to nurture and meaningful choices to make—preferably ones other than "kill this guy or don't."
My strongest memories of the week I locked myself in a room to play RDR2 were the quiet moments between shootouts: helping strangers on a trail, getting sidetracked by rabbit hunts, browsing for horse treats in a general store. Getting from A to B in Rockstar's Old West generated stories, and for all its good qualities, GTA has never been good at this. The story of a journey in GTA is usually "I beelined to a waypoint in a very fast car, maybe buying a new gun on the way."
The flip side of introducing complexity to GTA is that some folks will be caught off guard (or put off) by new points of friction. I can see the "Why the hell do I need to worry about gas in GTA?!" posts coming from a mile away, but ya know, Rockstar is capable of accomodation. Maybe a batch of good ol' cheats will let folks put up all the guardrails, if that's their thing. Or wait for the inevitable PC version and mod it up.
