GTA VI is the first Grand Theft Auto built to encourage empathy, says Rockstar, but it won't punish chaotic players either
Rob Nelson, the co-studio head of Rockstar North and one of three creative leads on GTA VI, spoke to The Guardian, who watched him play the game at the studio's Edinburgh headquarters a month before its November 19 release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. When asked whether this is the first GTA game to try to encourage a measure of empathy, Nelson replied:
"I would say so. I would say that it's a product of the story we're trying to tell. We've tried for the first time in a GTA to provide mechanisms that encourage it, for those who want to."
A relationship that is "yours to nurture or yours to lose"
The clearest example is the relationship between Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos. Most of the time, players can switch freely between them, though some parts of the game lock players into one character's perspective. When the pair are apart, they can text and call each other. When they are together, players can take them on dates to the gym, a bar, a meditation retreat, or a liquor store stick-up, and press a button to make them hold hands.
"The relationship is yours to nurture or yours to lose," Nelson told the Guardian. "Whether it remains a romantic relationship is in your hands." MacDonald writes that neglecting it has consequences, and in an August interview with Famitsu, Nelson gave one example: letting the relationship slide, with options such as holding hands or kissing disappearing, though they can be won back with effort. Players can also keep things purely professional, and Jason and Lucia will still work together as partners in crime.
Careful crime is rewarded, and chaos escalates fast
The same thinking carries over into how crimes are committed. Jason and Lucia start small, only able to hot-wire low-end vehicles and pick basic locks, and work their way up to higher-value jobs. "These guys are a younger couple with their backs against the wall," Nelson said. "Narratively, it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to go out and cause as much carnage and make as much noise as they can." Instead, players can scope out a target, disable security cameras or steal footage, and find backdoors and safe codes to get in without pulling a gun on anyone.
Skip the preparation, and things go wrong quickly. In the Guardian's session, a jewelry-store robbery fell apart when a guard upstairs opened fire instead of surrendering. After a chase on a stolen motorbike, pursued by police cars and helicopters, the pair made it back to their car, stowed the cash, changed clothes and lay low on the outskirts of the city until the heat died down.
Encouragement, not punishment
Nelson was careful about the limits. "Crime is a fundamental part of GTA," he said, adding, "at least, up until now, it has been." He went on: "We're trying to make sure we're not punishing people for playing the game they are used to … [but] your actions will have some effect on how the game plays out."
The influence of Red Dead Redemption 2 is deliberate. MacDonald describes GTA VI as heavily inspired by Rockstar's 2018 western, in which outlaw Arthur Morgan comes to regret his life of violence and an Honor system tracks his moral choices. GTA VI's closest equivalent is the Criminal Profile, which judges how professionally Jason and Lucia operate rather than whether they are good people. Each character has a separate profile, and reported states run from Professional through Aggressive, Violent, and Psycho. Nelson told Famitsu that the world becomes more aggressive toward players who play aggressively, and that, unlike Red Dead Redemption 2's Honor system, the profile doesn't unlock store discounts. He has also said there is "no right or wrong way to play the game."
How much all of this changes the story remains to be seen. Everything described so far comes from sessions in which Rockstar's own developers held the controller, although MacDonald says hers was far less choreographed than a typical preview. Players will, however, get to judge for themselves if this builds meaningfully on RDR2's Honor system when GTA VI launches on November 19.
Source(s)
Add as a preferred source on Google
