Here’s how GTA 6’s character switching will work

The recent interview with Rockstar North executives has provided some insight into the development process behind GTA 6, as well as new details on some of the mechanics. Another interesting piece of information in there is related to character switching and how it’s been improved compared to GTA V.

For reference, GTA V’s main story had three protagonists: Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. The game allowed switching between the three at any given time using a character wheel. When moving over to a different lead, the camera would zoom out, move over to where the selected character is on the map, and then zoom back in, giving control of said character.

Instantaneous character switching

In GTA 6, there will be two protagonists: Jason and Lucia, but switching between them will be much more seamless. As per the Dazed interview, players will be able to instantly switch between the two characters. As stated in the given example, if you are playing as Lucia, who is riding shotgun with Jason in a car, you will be able to instantly switch to Jason and take control of the vehicle, and vice versa.

This marks the first time that a GTA game has featured a playable couple in the lead role, which makes for some unique scenarios: on the way to a job, for example, players can cruise along the highway as Jason, or swap to Lucia in the passenger seat to scroll on the in-game phone. When the job inevitably goes wrong and spirals into a car chase, the fluid system enables players to take the wheel in one moment, then fire on pursuers out of the passenger window the next.

This suggests there won’t be a disguised loading animation like GTA V, but a more instantaneous switch instead. However, it is unclear how the hand-off to the second character will affect the first, and whether there will be story-related moments where players will not be allowed to switch, though that seems likely.