The reader feels worried about this GTA 6’s graphics are so realistic that it will no longer be fun to cut characters, as was the case on PS2.
I played GTA 3 and the other two Grand Theft Autos games on PlayStation 2 to death when I was a kid. I loved those games and at the time they seemed to me not just the coolest thing, but a level of sophistication and maturity that video games had never seen before, that elevated them far above anything else you might play on other systems.
In fact, what I was most fascinated by was the game’s willingness to let you kill anyone you want in any way you can think of, while enjoying the sexy sight of the game’s women wearing low-res bikinis. For a 15-year-old, who is extremely precocious and as pathetic as he seems in hindsight, I can’t help but think of the games with a sense of nostalgia.
The bad graphics, especially now, help it not be taken seriously except to some extent. But what if all this chaos were possible and the virtual people looked completely real, like they do in the GTA 6 trailer?
I don’t want to sound like my grandparents — unlike them, I’ve been playing video games my whole life — but I feel like this is a real problem that people are avoiding. Most action games involve killing people and GTA games make you kill very realistic people in very realistic settings. If you actually live in Miami, I imagine it will seem especially surreal.
GTA politicos used to call it a murder simulator, but was that inaccurate just because the graphics were so low quality or because sex and violence were only one part of the game? Because I refuse to believe that there was a majority that was interested in the story just for the story’s sake, not at the time, not in the days of GTA 3.
So based on what we saw from the GTA 6 trailer, with the beach scene or the woman in a bikini on the roof of a skyscraper. You’d be able to kill all these people if you wanted, right? I mean you were always able to before, so why not now? If this were a PlayStation 2 or even PlayStation 4 game, I would pull out my Uzi and laugh as I mowed them all down. I mean I wouldn’t do that now but in the past I definitely would have.
That or running them over or finding a way to crash your car in an interesting way or trying to overturn a train… There are more peaceful things you can do in modern GTA games, especially with regard to racing, but killing people in entertaining ways… This is still one of the… Basic appeals, right?
So either you can do that in a photorealistic GTA 6, which would be very annoying when everything looks real, or you can’t and Rockstar will have to admit that, in fact, there is something kind of wrong with GTA itself. Basic, and it doesn’t work when everything seems so real.
I remember reading about the original 2D games and how they were influenced by Pac-Man, which is a good thing. At the time, the graphics never bothered anyone, even if the number of kills was the same, but now I imagine my kids sitting there playing it for hours at a time, laughing at how fun the virtual kills are.
My kids aren’t old enough to play the game yet (well, not unless it’s later than that) but the idea bothers me. And before someone says, “Oh, that’s not real.” Players know this isn’t real. At what point does it become real enough to be a problem? If the characters look almost realistic, surely it’s not mentally healthy to sit around shooting them and playing them all day?
At what point do you draw the line? When in virtual reality? When virtual reality is indistinguishable from real life? It feels like we’re not far from that now.
I’m not claiming to have any answers here, and I’m not proposing to ban anything, but as a parent, the whole question of what the game is about is starting to bother me. I’m interested to see future trailers, and whether they expand on the story further, which would seem to humanize the characters more and make their lives, and hopefully the lives of others, have more weight.
I hope so, because if GTA 6 is half the size of GTA 5, it will have a huge impact on the lives of tens of millions of people. I began to think that this was not a good thing for them or for society in general.
By reader 84Colbat
Reader features do not necessarily represent the opinions of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your 500-600 word Reader Feature at any time, which if used will be published in the appropriate period following the weekend. Simply contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to email.
More: Baldur’s Gate 3 overtakes Starfield to become Steam Deck’s most popular game
More: How Steam Deck reignited and then killed my passion for gaming – Reader Feature
More: Steam bans games with developer AI-generated art claims
Follow Metro Games on Twitter And email us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk
To send inbox messages and Reader features more easily, without having to send an email, simply use the Send Things page here.
For more stories like this, visit our games page.
Sign up to get all the exclusive game content and latest releases before you see them on the site.
privacy policy »
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.