GTA 6 is stealing one of Red Dead Redemption 2's best features
Overview & Key Takeaways
Expect a more structured story in Vice City as Rockstar Games says Grand Theft Auto 6 will have story chapters, similar to Red Dead Redemption 2.
Rockstar Games is finally dishing out some hard information on Grand Theft Auto 6 ahead of the game's Nov. 19 release. With pre-orders going live, we now know how many editions of GTA 6 there are and how much each will cost, with the cheapest setting you back $79.99. While most of the information is focused on pre-order bonuses and where the best place to play the game will be, a small detail reveals a welcome change to how the series will approach its narrative.
GTA6's Ultimate Edition will grant players access to a number of premium vehicles, weapons, and more, but you won't get access all at once. A short line in the official description of the Ultimate Edition notes that bonuses will be, "threaded across all aspects of Jason and Lucia's story, with new items uncovered behind each chapter." It is the use of "chapter" that is most telling. Sure, it could be a general way to refer to the evolving story beats of a game, but more likely this reveals that GTA 6 will be broken up into large chapters.
Red Dead Redemption 2 features an incredibly lifelike, immersive world.
Image: Rockstar Games via Polygon
This would mean Rockstar is taking a page from 2018's Red Dead Redemption 2, which divided the story of Arthur Morgan into distinct sections. In RDR 2, that allowed the story to utilize time jumps and more holistic changes to the game's map. Vice City and its surrounding area already looks to be a massive setting for GTA 6. Giving players a tour of that extensive environment by setting each chapter around a new section of the map, as in RDR 2, would make a lot of sense. Adding clear divisions to sections of the story could also allow Rockstar to play around more with genre and tone in exciting ways. Grand Theft Auto's stories have traditionally flowed in a more uninterrupted stream, with mission after mission popping up with little divide to give the story time to breathe.
Since its announcement, the story of GTA 6 has been a large focus. The game is set to follow dual protagonists Lucia and Jason in a Bonnie and Clyde-inspired tale of crime and love. The official synopsis reads as follows:
Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them. But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida — forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive.
RDR 2 is widely considered the best game, if only from a narrative perspective, that Rockstar has ever made. GTA 6 taking notes from the Western title is nothing but a good sign for the emphasis the new game is putting on narrative. That isn't to say that Grand Theft Auto has terrible stories, rather that Rockstar is taking everything it has learned in the time since GTA 5's release in 2013 to make GTA 6 the best game it can be.
Rockstar plans to launch Grand Theft Auto 6 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on Nov. 19.
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