We just got our most detailed look at Grand Theft Auto 6, and one thing is clear: it’s a love story. One with a happy ending? That remains to be seen, but the couple dynamic alone is one of the most interesting things Rockstar Games has ever done.
It’s not that the duo of Lucia and Jason demonstrate unprecedented novelty or wild technical ambition — the series already proved it could successfully handle multiple protagonists with Trevor, Michael, and Franklin — it’s that Rockstar has taken on one of the trickiest relationships to convey in gaming and made it the heart of the story. Games are notoriously bad at romance; you’re either hammering simp-coded dialogue options to win the affection of another party member or watching awkward cinematics that are about as sexy as an afternoon at the podiatrist. If anyone can pull it off, though, it’s Rockstar.
The new trailer shows us glimpses of Lucia and Jason working together on main story missions, but I was able to see more interesting elements of their partnership during a gameplay demo at Rockstar’s studio. In this new footage, I found that their relationship is represented in many small ways and not just them having each other’s back during bombastic shootouts. You can walk around holding hands, buy your lover a sandwich, and go shopping together to add some more clothes to your wardrobe.
“You manage the relationship in the way you hopefully nurture any relationship — which is by spending time together,” Rob Nelson, Head of Development and Co-Studio Head at Rockstar North, told us. “So being in the open world and exploring together or doing activities together — playing pool or mini golf or kayaking; normal slice of life things. Or, robbing stores together, robbing banks together. However players want to spend that time together, it will have a positive impact on the relationship.”
My Love Language is Felonies
I love the introduction of a true couple dynamic. From the interactions I saw, this isn’t a campaign-long escort mission or one character playing sidekick to another. They have different but equally powerful skill sets — Lucia has kickboxer training, for example — and have their own routines when apart, and so they feel like two individuals rather than one protagonist that’s been hacked in half and sent on its way.
But an authentic depiction of romance is just the mechanical foundation. Being a couple working together for a taste of the good life gives the story an emotional hook that the series hasn’t had before. Every crime, no matter how unhinged, is a step towards a better life together, not just one on the path towards avaricious madness. Think Bonnie and Clyde or True Romance, two people striving for the same goal, and to hell with everyone else. Suddenly, no matter how minor the crime — holding up a Waffle House or smacking around some douchebag bro type on the beach to loot him for $12 — has an emotional stake, not just a chaotic one.
The small things matter too, like staying in touch, as anyone who has ignored multiple texts from a partner while on a night out will tell you. Even if you stick to playing one character as much as possible, the other will still be out there in the world.
“You can text the other character — Jason or Lucia — at any point or you can call them. It’s quite cool when you text back and forth,” says Nelson.
“If you want to just spend the whole day out on your own as one of the characters, that’s fine. The other one will text you: ‘Hey, I’m going to go to bed to lock up, you OK?’ All you need to do is respond, ‘I’ll see you later,’ or, ‘OK, goodnight,’ and that’s good enough. If you don’t bother to even respond it may impact your relationship a bit.”
Fighter Not a Lover
That said, I’m pleased that engaging with the mechanics of being a couple seems to be optional in every way that matters. Their partnership is, of course, central to the narrative and so will inevitably be a component in many of the story’s missions. But the amount of effort you put into maintaining their romance and roleplaying a couple is, according to Rockstar, entirely up to you.
“Could we bring some sort of emotional resonance to GTA for people if they wanted to engage with it?” asks Nelson. “Could we also provide mechanisms for people to just opt out of it if they’re not into it? If they feel like ‘I don’t want a relationship in this?’ That’s what we’re going to find out. It’s not something that we want to foist upon players.”
It’s the right call. Not only are romantic stories divisive — even just a few years ago I was venomously opposed to the genre — but even if you are a fan, finding couples and relationships that resonate with everyone? That’s impossible. Seriously, check out the romance section of any bookstore; there’s everything from cute and cuddly to monster sex. I’d rather have a GTA that no one felt alienated by than a system that forced players to smooch to finish the game.
Speaking of smooching, it sounds like Rockstar isn’t going to get too down and dirty with the physical side of the relationship. Nelson explained that Rockstar didn’t want to create a weird caricature of intimacy, a trap so many games have fallen into before.
“These characters feel very right together — they really do,” he says. “For anybody that wants to play around with the idea of role playing their relationship, it’s amazing. So many people on the team have connected with the characters. But physical intimacy is a huge part of a relationship, and so it has to be done right. Like anything that we do, we have to iterate and try things and iterate on it until we figure out what feels right.”
So Rockstar has written a couple that works on a bunch of levels, and all of them seem pretty positive at the outset. Personally, as a dark romance reader, I like my stories with a generous serving of toxicity and at least one Mafia love interest, but I think Rockstar has made the right call in giving Lucia and Jason a healthy, if felony-inclined, relationship. The world of Grand Theft Auto is one that has always welcomed experimentation, and I wouldn’t want to see what the internet could come up with if it were allowed to go ham on these two precious angel babies.
“You will always have the benefit of working together and having each other’s back — whether they’re romantically close or not doesn’t change that,” says Nelson. “They will still work together. It’s really about what you want for them, their story, and how it plays out.”
My only worry? As someone who cried over Red Dead Redemption 2’s ending — a reaction to a game only Rockstar has ever been able to pull from my cold dead heart — there’s so much potential for heartbreak no matter how much effort you put into the relationship. Rockstar likes you to make big choices — think of Niko Bellic’s dilemma at the end of GTA 4 — and it’s not always clear what the consequences will be until you’re staring slack-jawed at the final cutscene. A couple might mean more emotionally engaging storytelling, but a couple also has so many ways to screw, screw up, or screw each other over that the risk of sobbing into my DualSense is high.
Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released on November 19.
Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.