Grand Theft Auto 6 Needs To Be The Most Serious Entry Yet

GTA was never a completely serious series. It always parodied the USA, leaning on satire with exaggerated characters, commercials, billboards, radio hosts, TV shows, and mimicry of real-world products and personalities.

Grand Theft Auto 6 should step back from these elements, at least in the ways the series normally approaches them. So far, the trailers have only really played on the ever-growing presence of social media - namely, TikTok - in our lives since 2013. Other than this, I hope the game remains relatively serious in the world it depicts and the story it wants to tell.

Plus, what else is there in the last decade that GTA 5 didn’t already make fun of? I don’t think we need parodies of bleak realities like Donald Trump, COVID, or Donald Trump Round Two Electric Boogaloo. By all means, take into account the realities of modern American culture, but I hope it uses the satirical identity in a more meaningful way.

Enough Games Try To Lean On Parodies Now

I’ve never been a big fan of parody stuff, which is ironic when GTA has always leaned in that direction. Sure, some can be fun, and references can be handled smartly, but for the most part, over-the-top parodies just end up making things feel like heartless humour or that it's trying too hard to be funny.

I think back to the terrible commercials and billboards in Cyberpunk 2077 - a game that really should have nailed that element.

GTA 6’s trailers so far have, to my preference, not shown us too much - both narratively, but also minimal parody culture. There are bits, but mainly we’ve seen the world shown off in grand fashion, with snippets of the duo protagonists offering a vague taste of the story we have to look forward to - and one that, hopefully, is seeming to be more serious. Pairing this with a solid, meaningful world grounded in American culture without trying too hard to laugh at it could prove to be an incredible experience, and a new height for GTA’s storytelling.

I’m not expecting GTA 6 to actually be serious in every way. Already, the second trailer shows us Ammu-Nation being advertised on TV with a pitchman sporting a handlebar moustache, flanked by women in USA bikinis, as he fires off big guns obnoxiously, so my hopes aren’t that high for the overall tone of the world.

But I think back to GTA 5, and I just don’t care about the story or the world. It’s not a game I’ve ever had the desire to play through again for narrative reasons, as even any fleeting moment of anything serious between the main cast is shallow water in a mile-wide pool of cliches, bland supporting characters, and Trevor doing something really wacky because he’s such a wacky guy.

And then I compare this to when I think back to Red Dead Redemption 2, which I often revisit for not only the detailed world, but its moving story.

I Hope Red Dead Redemption 2 Reflects Rockstar’s New Direction

We know that GTA 6 is still going to have those sillier commercials and side characters that really lean into the ‘Murica’ mindset, but I’m relying solely on the writing quality of Red Dead Redemption 2 to carry my interest in GTA’s next entry. I don’t think we’ll get much story context from any future trailers for the game, as was the case with Red Dead, so only time will tell how high-quality the final product is.

My hopes for Michael, Franklin, and Trevor were let down (though I never really had hope for Trevor), while my fondness for Arthur Morgan, John Marston, and every member of the Van der Linde gang remains as strong as ever. The two different series are colossally grounded in contrasting tones, but when I see the depth of the characters Rockstar can provide in a crime-ridden story, it makes me hope for more than we got from the Los Santos trio.

America is a terrifying place, in ways now more than ever, and when crime is just as terrifying, I’d rather have a significant dive into the culture, using satire to address more pressing issues and educate people through entertainment, rather than attempts to make the ways the world has changed seem ‘ha ha funny’.

So please, GTA 6, give us characters and a world that matters. Give us a serious story that will leave us with a lasting impression. Give us a complex Bonnie and Clyde storyline that will leave us smiling and brokenhearted by the end of it. And give us an America that is just as terrifying as it is nowadays.

Grand Theft Auto 6