Grand Theft Auto VI will be a game of firsts, but it will also be familiar to fans of the franchise. Reports suggest that the highly-anticipated game will feature the series’ first playable female character, and it will return to one of the franchise’s familiar locations.
In a wide-ranging report from Bloomberg, internal sources at Rockstar Games said that the latest addition to the Grant Theft Auto franchise will take place in a fictionalized version of Miami and its surrounding areas. Although further details have not been made public, this would mark the series’ return to the Florida city, whose name in the GTA universe was previously “Vice City.”
Although the game’s map is expected to be massive, it’s not as enormous as it may someday become. That’s because the studio’s initial intention was to make a vast map with multiple territories modeled after large sections of North and South America.
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A reckoning within the games’ industry, and at Rockstar in particular, over labor relations has pushed the studio to reel in its ambitions and cut the main map down to a more manageable size. As with GTA V, however, the studio plans to continually update its upcoming game to add new missions and cities over time, which the studio’s leadership hopes will allow it to rely less on overworking its employees.
The decision to make one of the game’s main characters a woman is also being touted as a sign that the studio has improved. Sources within Rockstar Games said that the character will be one of two playable leads who form the center of a bank robbery story that was influenced by Bonnie and Clyde.
The female protagonist, a Latina, will apparently be treated respectfully by the studio that has vowed not to punch down anymore with jokes about marginalized groups, in contrast to previous games in the series. That will be a big step for the studio, which was criticized for objectifying women and treating them as disposable in previous franchise games.
Similarly, Rockstar is trying to address its games’ treatment of minority groups. The upcoming game reportedly once featured a “Cops ‘n’ Crooks” game mode that saw teams of police and criminals play against one another. The mode was canceled, though, for being “tone-deaf” following the reckoning over police violence that was prompted by the murder of George Floyd.
Unfortunately, players will still have to wait before finding out what Grand Theft Auto VI is like to play. Industry analysts expect the game to be released between April 2023 and March 2024, but some think it could take even longer before it’s ready to hit game store shelves.