According to those acquainted with the project, Rockstar’s upcoming game, Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6), will have a female protagonist for the first time. The article, which mostly focuses on improvements in Rockstar Games’ internal development culture, makes this claim.
The woman will allegedly be “Latina” and “One of a pair of leading characters in a narrative inspired by bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde,” according to the statement. It is unclear from the article whether or not this second character will also be playable or what gender she is.
The Bloomberg story also purports to reveal other information, such as the fact that GTA 6—or whatever it ends up being called—was formerly known under the codename “Project Americas” and has been under development since 2014. The game’s original ideas asked for the incorporation of areas modeled after enormous portions of North and South America. The intended focus of the game was “a fictional depiction of Miami and its surrounding environs,” but the developer has “reeled in those ambitions.”
Additionally, according to the source, Rockstar plans to release GTA 6 in a manner akin to live-service games like Destiny “which regularly add new missions and towns to the game as it is updated over time. ” GTA 6 will reportedly still contain “more interior areas than previous Grand Theft Auto games,” even in this scaled-down form, according to Rockstar’s management, which they hope “will lead to less crunch before the game’s ultimate release.”
The introduction of a female character in GTA 6 is not particularly surprising given the criticism Rockstar has faced for not including any playable female characters in any of the games it has created in the past decade (if not longer). However, if Bloomberg’s reporting is true, it would be positive news.
Similar to this, it seems like a good idea to distribute content in stages to reduce the burden on developers. However, it’s important to remember that a live-service-style game release does not ensure a life free from stress, and can even make matters worse because creators are obligated to meet an interminable number of deadlines. Not so much the way by which a game is published, but rather how the project is managed during production, is key to preventing crunch.
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