Weekend Hot Topic: The final verdict on the GTA 6 trailer

Readers offer a more considered reaction to the GTA 6 trailer, now that they’ve had time to think about it properly.

It’s been a busy week this week, with the first trailer for GTA 6 and The Game Awards, but it’s clear that Rockstar’s long-awaited sequel is far more anticipated than every other current game put together. But after thinking on it for a few days, were readers still as impressed as when they first saw it?

Some were but there was also much more scepticism than from the initial reactions, particularly in terms of whether the trailer was showing actual in-game footage or not. Although few were prepared to say they wouldn’t play it anyway.

Too real
My first impressions of the GTA 6 trailer were pretty much as expected. It looked amazing with stunning graphics that created a gorgeous world filled with the most annoying of people. I suppose that’s just like the real thing though, to be fair.

I think, by this point, having played all of the GTA games since GTA 3, I know the formula. It’s foolish to expect a revolution in comparison to GTA 5; rather it will be an evolution. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m confident that it will be a ridiculously fun game to play, but after playing Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder this year, I’m slightly nonchalant about the next GTA. Largely, because we all know how it will play – more of the same.

This sounds negative, but I fully expect GTA 6 to be a blast to play. However, I really hope they drop their ‘tap to sprint’ habit, which drove me insane in GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Matt

Funny concern
Regarding Grand Theft Auto 6, I hope the flavour of the satire survives. There’s a type of humour that only Grand Theft Auto does and it’s just the right side of sarcastic. The internet in Grand Theft Auto 5, for example, is full of very funny adverts and websites that are really well written and seem to mock real life brands in just the right way.

If Grand Theft Auto lost its targeted and well-written humour, I fear it would become just another action game.

In general, I thought Grand Theft Auto 6 had a great-looking first trailer, and the idea of a possible female lead is a logical choice and long overdue. The only downside is that the game isn’t out next year. I suppose the long wait gives everyone time to save up for a new console.
@msv858 (Twitter)

No rush
I am not super excited about GTA 6. I will wait and see. I did it for GTA 5 because I was so disappointed in GTA 4. GTA 5 was okay, I guess. I bought it, finished it, and sold it. I liked the driving again after GTA 4’s overly heavy feel but the on-foot controls are poor. They haven’t changed them seemingly since GTA 3 came out.

The three main characters were interesting enough but outside the missions the game wasn’t holding my attention.

I’m hoping the soundtrack makes a big comeback as GTA 4 and 5 were poor when put up against Vice City and San Andreas.

So, to sum up. Soundtrack, walking controls, and stuff to do is what I want. I’ve no interest in the online portion, so I’ll probably wait until the game is cheap and patched fully before I go near it.
Bobwallett

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Relative ambitions
Yeah, it’s visually stunning at the very least. Character models and the amount going on are both a big step up and overall there’s just a sort of flawlessness to it that only Rockstar has seemed to be able to do for an open world since Red Dead Redemption 2.

The latter is now probably the second-best looking game I’ve ever seen but since I came away a bit cool on that game, the excitement as a result of GTA 6’s graphics is a bit more measured than it maybe might have been.

That’s not the trailer’s fault, as there’s no way they could show right now how it would be any different from GTA 6 or give an idea of any progress Rockstar has made in certain gameplay areas. But the fact this first look is way more story-focused than their previous reveal trailers might be a bit of a clue that they’re doubling down on story, and I find that potentially a bit ominous.

A lot of effort being put into a game’s story isn’t harmful in and of itself but if it means Rockstar has bought into their own hype as storytellers, and we end up with 70 hours of repetitive missions that show their full hand gameplay wise by hour 10, I’m not sure it’ll live up to its hype.

The thing I noticed about GC’s comments on the sandbox nature of the series is it’s ‘the idea that you can go anywhere and do anything’ that’s key to the appeal. Not that you actually can.

Most of the freedom is a bit superficial, as there’s not really that much exploration beyond for randomly placed collectibles, trivial mini-games, hidden jumps, nice scenery, and Easter eggs. Compared to a world like Fallout, where I always wanted to know what was round the corner or Zelda, where ‘going anywhere and doing anything’ tends to reward you with actual gameplay related discoveries and interactions. Or Divinity: Original Sin/Baldur’s Gate, where the chaos you spread actually has lasting and impossibly far reaching implications.

None of those have that immediate visual rush that Rockstar games deliver, though, and I admit I’ll still be really hyped for the game as a seismic media event. Let’s face facts, it’s going to be the biggest entertainment product in history, 2025’s equivalent of summer 1977 queues outside the cinema to see that film with the laser swords.

But although it would be peak entitlement to expect Rockstar to be a world leader in every aspect of gaming, I do think they could sometimes do a bit more to really explore what freedom means in the context of interactive entertainment if that’s what their reputation holds them to.

For reasons related to authenticity and realism, it’s hard to see how they’d compete with those earlier mentioned games in the areas where they excel. But if they don’t really try, GTA 6 might come across as only superficially ambitious.
Panda

Cautiously optimistic
About time I actually found the time to contribute to one of these! I always mean to and then suddenly it is Saturday morning and I’m reading other people’s responses instead.

I was still awake on Monday when the trailer dropped, and all the usual sites went crazy. My initial response was… well, mixed I guess.

The graphics look great and if it is representative of the open world, it seems a large step forward. How much of this was specially rendered for this particular trailer though? How much is indicative of the final gameplay? Unless I’ve missed something, we don’t really know yet but all the fanboys are assuming this is what the game will look like. We don’t need to go too far back to recall the diabolical launch of Cyberpunk 2077 and all that it promised yet failed to deliver.

I was really hyped for that game and ultimately disappointed, despite having an Xbox Series X to play it on at the time, so I avoided most of the issues that others experienced with the last gen consoles. I guess I’ve learnt to take trailers with a huge pinch of salt; no experience of gameplay, no indication of how much is cinematic vs. game engine or even if the entire thing is pre-rendered scenes specifically created for this trailer as opposed to being in the game.

Don’t get me started about the appearance of Joel in one of The Last Of Us Part 2 trailers, which turned out to be a totally different character in the final game.

The recent article you published illustrated my major issues with the last version of GTA and that was that the gameplay has not really moved on at all since it moved to 3D. GTA 5 is passable but hardly a great game to actually play at times, despite the clearly huge fanbase. That’s the main reason why I never actually finished the main storyline myself, when it came onto Gam ePass.

I love the sandbox elements in GTA, even all the way back to GTA 2 which was the first one I bought, but if the actual gameplay experience doesn’t feel materially different between GTA3 (released in 2001) and GTA 5 (2013) the fact the graphics are a bit better doesn’t do enough to justify my ever-reducing time.

I guess I’m concerned that this will have the same problems of style over substance and therefore I will be unlikely to pre-order the game until I’ve seen some solid reviews. Having said that, I’ll very likely play it at some point, just maybe not immediately and for full price. Talking to a colleague at work about it today and he has already decided he’s going to pre-order. We know it will sell well off the back of the success of GTA 5, I guess I’m a bit more sceptical these days.

Another thought I’ve had is the release date isn’t until 2025. We’re expecting to see a PS5 Pro sometime next year and who knows if Microsoft will drop an equivalent in the next 18-24 months. Will GTA 6 be needing the more advanced hardware in the same way Cyberpunk 2077 was and actually the current consoles won’t actually be able to quite pull it off?

I’d love it to be amazing, that the trailer is representative of the final game, that it actually plays really smooth, and is brilliantly polished with the additional time they’ve had to work on this. Only time will tell but I’m sure there will be plenty of discussion about it in the next year – the fact that a game trailer made national news says it all!

In the meantime, I’m thoroughly enjoying Baldur’s Gate 3, which has not only lived up to my internal hype but totally exceeded it. Sadly, no-one I know is playing it but I’m 140 hours in now with plenty more to come.
Adam W

Hype rising
Now I’ve had a few hours to ruminate on it, I’d say the GTA 6 trailer was really good. The graphics are incredible as expected, and I particularly liked the amount of detail retained when the camera’s high up. The music choice was spot on – I haven’t googled it, but I assume it’s Tom Petty – and really matches the Bonnie and Clyde theming going on.

My only issue is that Vice City is a little too similar to Los Santos; that sort of sunny, coastal location. Liberty City or the once-rumoured Las Vegas style city would’ve felt more different. I was always going to play it, because obviously I’m a gaming enthusiast, but the trailer definitely made me more excited for its release.
ANON

GC: It was Tom Petty.

More: Trending

Only two years
The trailer for GTA 6 was obviously awesome and beautifully executed, to get the gaming juices pumping but this looked like cinematics or was it actual gameplay? It just seemed so realistic, apart from the weird arm waving scene in the vehicle, which always seems so unnatural to me and too cartoonish! It’s in other games also! Arm waving needs better realised mechanics for sure. Other than that – wow!

One fear is how many cut scenes do we have to go through and is the gameplay the main overriding elements? I have had so many ideas regarding what the player could do, it would require a medium sized book to list them all.

I feel you need to feel fear if you do something against the law. The fact in every GTA, breaking the law is fun and you feel it’s easily done, but when I watch movies it’s intense and gripping, which it needs to be in GTA 6, to make the inevitable carnage a lot more affecting. And if you do get away with something it would feel better if you had to be way more careful and strategic, but still obviously intensely fun and immersive.

Looking forward to a female protagonist, as men have always been the dominant sex in the other games. In fact, let’s go further and involve LGBTQ+ characters, as the world has definitely changed since the fifth title.

Seasons would be good; hurricanes and tornadoes would be most excellent indeed, with environmental damage. Talking about forces of nature, how about bigfoot hunting in vast forests or kraken hunting in the oceans. Red Dead Redemption had a bunch of fantastical creatures, so GTA 6 could do also – like the Megalodon in GTA 5 if you had the DLC code to unlock.

There are plenty of world politics and real world situations to explore from over the last decade or more and it will be interesting to see how Rockstar Games deals with these stories and scenarios.

When I play this game, I am thinking The Elder Scrolls open world length and size of exploration and possibilities. This will last the gaming world 10 to 15 years of continuous content, that’ll kept getting updated to maximise interest.

Hype is a bit impossible to suppress fully but this still feels like a far off dream at the moment. Exciting times in the gaming industry and the future looks incredible at the moment. Not too long now!
Alucard

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Readers offer a more considered reaction to the GTA 6 trailer, now that they’ve had time to think about it properly.