For several months now, we have had the right to several rumors indicating such and such information on the next title of Rockstar Games which will be none other than Grand Theft Auto 6. While some have been denied by well-known insiders in the gaming world, here is new information this time seems more concrete than ever, and comes to us from Bloomberg. Among the latest leaks is the affirmation of a playable female character, as well as a new art direction that will further distance the new title from its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto 5.
Exit the Frat-Boy culture and make way for feminism in GTA 6
It would seem that the latest events have particularly affected the whole world, and more specifically the USA with the assassination of George Floyd, this man cowardly killed by a police officer during a simple check. Following this tragedy, Rockstar Games has made some decisions for the Online of its flagship title deciding to cancel one of its new modes titled Cops’n’Crooks. The latter had to stage “the good guys and the bad guys” with a team of police and civilians, you can easily imagine the rest.
This decision is not the only one that the starred firm has taken in recent months, and the studio seems to want to change paths more, especially for its next title GTA 6. If we were used to dealing with groups of men, more or less friends, with a fairly macho culture, we must admit, according to Bloomberg, GTA 6 should feature a playable female protagonist for the first time. This one would be Latina and would therefore be one of the two main characters. To put it simply, our duo would be close to the famous duo of known thieves, Bonny and Clyde.
Such a decision in GTA is quite exceptional, since as we were able to tell you just before, players in the franchise are used to playing gangsters and killing lots of civilians, but also seeing women as mere sex objects. And if the atmosphere of GTA 5 immersed us in an environment in which chaos reigned with right-wing radio hosts to liberal politicians, this reflected, again according to Bloomberg, the atmosphere within the studio. According to the site, “Rockstar employees described a corporate culture where booze, fights and trips to strip clubs were commonplace“, not to mention the sudden crunch to release the game in time.
Following this, in 2018, some tongues were loosened, and since these events, the firm is trying to reinvent itself so that it is no longer perceived as a “boys club” company, as one employee reported. Thereby, GTA 6 should really be very different from what we know todayand if the game is taking so long to appear, it’s because the company had to face many changes, starting with improvements in working conditions such as the limitation of overtime, or the new policy called “flexible working hours” which allows employees to immediately take time off for each additional hour they work. Furthermore, there was also the departure of Dan Houser in 2019, the latter then leading the creative direction of the older games. Following his departure, changes necessarily took place with a drastic change with regard to the creation. Finally, there is also the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also slowed down the development of the game enormously. During this, the employees were apparently pampered by management, and they even had the to several masks and other objects/products so as not to be contaminated by the virus.
Because of this, GTA 6 naturally takes longer to develop, but we understand that this is for the well-being of the developers. In addition, management has indicated that it will not be necessary to work so-called excessive overtime to complete the title as soon as possible. Nevertheless, despite a long wait that persists, industry analysts predict the title will be released in Take-Two’s 2024 fiscal year, which runs from April 2023 to March 2024a little over a year from now.