Exciting News: GTA 6 Trailer! Rockstar Unleashes Unexpected Debut!
Monday night was just a bit chaotic, as after a low quality, Bitcoin watermark-stamped Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer leaked online, Rockstar decided to throw its 9 AM debut time out the window and just put the GTA 6 trailer live right then (after nuking everyone sharing the leak instantaneously).
The result is a 90 second trailer that honestly, blew away my expectations, as high as they were. It goes way more into the setting and vibe than even the first GTA 5 trailer, and there’s a ton we can learn about the characters and world just from this short spot. At least pretending we haven’t heard any leaks over the years on some points. Here’s everything I think we can extract from the trailer:
Lucia – We have met our first lead. The trailer introduces us to Lucia, who will apparently start the game fresh out of prison, but return to a life of crime after whatever she was convicted of in the first place (what, did you think we’d be playing as a reformed criminal?). She’s only in a few snippets of the trailer compared to the larger world as a whole, but we already get a clear sense of the Bonnie and Clyde vibe her story will have, as we see her romance with Jason and her robbery of a store to close out the spot.
Jason – If you watched just this trailer and had heard nothing else about the game, you might think it only starred Lucia, GTA’s first female protagonist. But all leaks and reporting indicate that like GTA 5, GTA 6 will have multiple protagonists and Jason is her counterpart. The “Clyde” half, as it were. My guess is that we will see a second spot focused more on his character down the road rather than him begin a background character like he was here.
Vice City, Leonida – While we have known for a time we were going back to Vice City, we are branching out deeper into the state of “Leonida,” where Rockstar has taken the game to go “full Florida” in parody form. Well, according to many, even Florida residents, aspects of the insanity shown here are not parody. The Florida Man meme is a meme for a reason, after all. There’s a mix of street culture, redneck partying and luxury yachting to cover all aspects of the region, and that produces some hilarious, outrageous scenes just in this trailer alone.
Character Modeling – “Having good graphics” was obviously on everyone’s bingo card for GTA 6, ten years after GTA 5, but I don’t think anyone was expecting the character models here to look this good. Yes, Lucia as the main lead looks great, but the other characters featured are often close to uncanny valley realistic.