Comment by Dig1t
3 hours ago
>I was concerned that they would fail to modernise into a world that is quite different now than 13 years ago
What do you mean by this? In what way has the world changed that you thought they might fail to capture?
3 hours ago
>I was concerned that they would fail to modernise into a world that is quite different now than 13 years ago
What do you mean by this? In what way has the world changed that you thought they might fail to capture?
I think it's mostly about the characters. GTAV was, in my opinion, much lighter-hearted than this is looking. Trevor was a hoot, Michael's marital problems were made light of, even Franklin as probably the most serious character still had plenty of quite direct comedy written around him.
I'm not sure that would go down well in 2026. The redneck thing feels tired, the public narrative of wealth inequality would likely make Michael feel out of touch, and much of the audience would have identified with Franklin but he doesn't really have the struggles that today's Millennials and Gen-Z have.
These two characters seem more realistic in that sense. Less direct comedy (although I still see that there's the iconic GTA parody in places), a couple who are probably going to be much more relatable even if they're criminals, and a standing in society that is more relatable.
It's not that the comedy wouldn't land, the parody/satire is important and it looks like it's still there, it's more that I think V depended on some stereotypes that are long gone, or that society recognises differently now.
I don’t play games to find people I relate to. I play games to become a character for a period of time in the game. Rich, poor, redneck… it doesn’t really matter. They can all be interesting and engaging characters to take on if the game is written well and fun to play.
I think this a mistake a lot of modern game companies are making. They think people want to be represented, when what most people want is an escape. I want to do things in a game that I would never be able to do in real life. That’s half the fun.
I also think the venn diagram of people offended by stereotypes and those who play GTA barely overlap. They may be completely separate circles. The people who will complain about the game were never going to buy it, so Rockstar shouldn’t care about what they have to say. Make the game for the customers, not the activists and critics.
I see your point, and maybe I'm over indexing on this or not describing it well.
I don't see myself in either of these characters, but I do see them as representative of society, whereas I don't see the GTAV characters as representative of society. However, I think I did when I first played GTAV the year it came out.
The last game I played was James Bond First Light – and that's for the escapism you describe, I got to "be" James Bond, great. But in the same way, the game and story felt relevant today, with aspects being believable in 2026, which is a stark comparison to how watching Thunderball recently made me feel – that was jarring and much harder to "escape" into because of how out of touch it was (obviously understandably so).
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I agree so much on this.
Let's say I'm caucasian male grown up in poor ex-USSR shithole struggling through immigration, changing countries and losing social circle multiple times along the way and struggling with loneliness, etc.
Then the least I want to do is to play game as migrant from Eastern Europe. Because if the character and their story is accurate and representive then I just be bored from it. And if it's inaccurate then it's just bad story telling.
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> there's the iconic GTA parody in places
My favorite was the fancy nightclub called "Effluvia", a fancy word for "stinks like sewage".
Indeed, and likely playing on its similarity to "affluence".
The gaming world, which is what I presume they meant, is much different today. The days of clunky gunplay and insta-failing a mission for going 10 feet out of the correct path are long gone and would be tiresome for most gamers.
Absolutely, I replayed some of GTAV is ~2018 it already felt a bit clunky in that respect.
I think some of this is technological, but much of it is style. There are likely limitations that forced some of those issues back in 2013, but I think it's more down to game design practices. It doesn't take a lot of tech to give you another 10 feet of leeway and trigger a sound bite with a snarky comment from another character.
Wait till you replay the earlier games. I bought the definitive edition trilogy in a sale, only just started playing thru them. Decided to skip GTA III completely after seeing the reviews and lack of unofficial patches. Vice City feels much more playable after adding a bunch of patches, but unfortunately it doesn't fix the clunkyness and difficulty of the missions. I'm only like 7 or 8 missions in and feel like quitting, having to retry several missions multiple times. Especially that RC helicopter mission, I've no idea how I even managed to complete that (took like 6 retries). But I'll somehow try and chug thru it.
Hopefully San Andreas is lot better (and given the number of mods available for it, it feels like it would be).
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