Yes, I will indeed tell you all about what I think about the GTA VI trailer. Mostly because I think that I could call most of it before release.
No, it isn’t just because of the leaks. The location was obvious if you’ve learned about Roman Numerals at any point. The ability to turn VI into “VICE” is simply too good to pass on. And besides which, it’s the only of the three historical major GTA locations that hasn’t gotten the RAGE-powered HD treatment. And the carefully-curated trailer footage does not disappoint, making it definitely Miami. I expect that, much like Los Santos and its real life counterpart, one will be able to orient themselves really quickly if they’ve been to Miami.
Of course, one of the great things about the 3D-Era Vice City titles was their representation of the 1980s, right at the beginning of Miami’s renaissance and dripping with the neon-lit trappings of the era as created by Miami Vice. VI will take place in the present or near-as-makes-no-difference to the present. The trailer’s use of vertical videos and bodycam footage ensures as much. And I believe it makes perfect sense…not for the user experience, but for Rockstar. Who’d have to find a new and interesting way to bake in the inevitable iteration of GTA: Online into VI if you were unable to carry around a smartphone. And that’s where the mental floodgates opened.
My newfound inability to get hyped about mass media properties really took a toll on this one, because in the middle of seeing the amazing map and enjoying the soundtrack, I was looking at things from a business sense. It’s an amazing looking map, surely filled with things for online. All of the cars seem to be recycled from V, which means some of them have been recycled from IV, which means that they didn’t have to worry about making things look like they were back in the preferred timeframe for Vice City. They can just go to Miami and save a lot of poring over historical documents. Why make it more difficult? Most concerning of all, with the stewards of the GTA franchise since the first time it was three-dimensional long gone from Rockstar games, there’s no telling what effects it will have on the story and the quality of the writing. It’s not that nobody can do what Lazlow did, is that anyone who does it will do it a little bit differently.
Still, not everyone is as cynical as I am and so the trailer seems to have gone on rather well. I can but hope that Rockstar will give single player its best shot. And maybe this time not forget its promises about single-player DLC…though this seems unlikely given that shark cards made sure that the real sharks have a constant supply of green blood in their water.
One can be hopeful without being hyped. And anyway, the trailer made a lot of people Google Tom Petty, so it can’t all be bad.
