Rumors are getting thicker and thicker as to whenGrand Theft Auto 6will finally be released after the franchise has been on hiatus for the past seven years and now, fans are hyped. However, this is still a franchise that has been hit or miss at the best of times and Grand Theft Auto 6 has a chance to wipe the slate clean and give us a thrilling gaming experience.
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NoGrand Theft Autogame is perfect and it might be important to look at previous installments to see what’s worked and what hasn’t. What made the game great and what brought it down. Here are some things Grand Theft Auto 6 needs to learn and ultimately forget.
10Learn: Character Customization
For whatever reason, afterSan Andreasintroduced the ability to change Carl Johnson’s body type, Rockstar Games decided to scrap that mechanic going intoGrand Theft Auto IV. Granted, going into later installments of the franchise, the developers did improve on the clothing options and hairstyles but you’d think, with today’s constant advances in technology, they would improve on something they brought to the table 16 years ago.
EvenGrand Theft Auto Onlinebrought us character customization, much like other massive multiplayer online games, so this feature is not an impossibility to the franchise.
9Ignore: Boring Mini-Games
Okay, seriously, who actually thought yoga was a fun addition toGrand Theft Auto V? Ever since the fourth official installment of the franchise,Rockstar Gameshas really been trying to bank on the realism that can be achieved with the current technology. With that, they constantly put in several little mini-games or activities, like yoga, darts, shooting ranges, and so forth. While some of these can be somewhat entertaining like the flight school, parachuting or racing, they should be building on the good and leave the boring ones behind.
8Learn: Business Empire
One of the best parts ofVice Citywas the variety of businesses available for purchase. Each business, whether it was an ice cream company, a movie studio or boatyard, had it’s own unique way to earn income which really added to the feeling of growing a business empire. EvenVice City Storiesbuilt upon this idea with different types of businesses to build from the ground up, whether they be legal or illegal. You can run prostitution and loan shark ring or a robbery and drug ring, the choice is yours.
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The idea of whatGrand Theft Auto 6will do is still being speculated, but it would be nice for the developers to bring back this feature with some more innovation on building a new type of business. Start your own nightclub, strip club or anything like that, the sky’s the limit.
7Ignore: Style Over Substance
Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t hold up, it just doesn’t. After the mega success ofSan Andreas, there was a lot of hype for what could be achieved on a new generation of consoles, and it didn’t really hold up. Granted some new ideas were brought in like the interactive cellphone and more substance to dating but they took out some of the best mechanics fromSan Andreas. The character customization was dumbed-down and the territory battles were just abandoned and replaced with nothing.
Even the story didn’t hold up as well as the family and character connection and emotion of Carl Johnson trying to regain the glory of his neighborhood and pick up the pieces of what was once his family. This was also the first game in the series to introduce more realistic graphics and procedural animation to give the player character more natural movement, almost as if we wouldn’t notice the things that were taken away.
6Learn: Easter Eggs
Out of all the companies out there, Rockstar Games is becoming more and more popular with how thought goes into their Easter eggs. Whether we’re talking aboutGrand Theft Auto,Red Dead Redemptionand evenManhunt, they usually slip in these unusual Easter eggs out of nowhere that have no connection to the actual story and usually have their own separate lore. Whether we’re talking about the mass grave inSan Andreas, the deadly moans of a dead couple inRed Dead Redemption 2or all theGTAEaster eggs inManhunt, there is always something that gives the player something else to investigate. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with inGrand Theft Auto 6, hopefully they try something else other than aliens.
5Ignore: Predictable Storylines
While each of theGrand Theft Auto’smain storylines have been celebrated on their own merits, they do tend to follow a somewhat familiar pattern. The main character(s) are wronged in some way, usually through betrayal, and they have to work their way to redemption and power. Claude wanted vengeance against Catalina during a bank job, Tommy Vercetti wanted revenge against Sunny for letting him serve a 15 year prison sentence and Carl Johnson wanted revenge against Big Smoke and Ryder for betraying Grove Street.
There’s got to be different avenues to explore when it comes to these games.Grand Theft Auto Vtried very hard to do something different but, in the end, still got stuck in the formula. Let’s see if we can go through a Grand Theft Auto game without a surprise betrayal.
4Learn: Hard But Meaningful Decisions
If there is one thing that could be said aboutGrand Theft Auto IV, it’s that it did manage a real gut-punch of an ending because, no matter what, you are going to have a difficult decision to make. No matter what, you will lose someone you care about and that was one of the best ideas brought to the franchise.Grand Theft Auto Vtried to do the same thing but it didn’t have the same impact because there is still a happy ending in the end if you choose the actual canonical ending.
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Bring some choices to the player that could deserve a real emotional response. Not only learn fromGrand Theft Auto IVbut also take some notes from any Telltale Game series, likeThe Walking DeadorTales From Borderlands.
3Ignore: Tedious Missions
Sadly,San Andreasis probably the most infamous for this. The meme “All you had to do is follow the train CJ!” has become all but well known in the gaming community. However, not enough people talk about the mission “Supply Lines…” from Zero that was actually so difficult that Rockstar had to tweak the gameplay and even the voice actor David Cross went on record stating his absolute hatred for the mission’s difficulty.
However, every game in the franchise has at least a couple of those missions that players just hate and dread over like, “Uh, that mission’s coming up soon.” Rockstar Games should learn what we don’t like in certain missions so that dread doesn’t return in Grand Theft Auto 6.
2Learn: DLC
It’s usually not a good sign when one of the best aspects of a Grand Theft Auto game is the extra content released a whole year later, but that was the case withGrand Theft Auto IV. Regardless, bothThe Ballad of Gay TonyandThe Lost and Damnedwere good in their own respects and showed what could be done with just a little extra content. However,Grand Theft Auto 5did not follow this trend, probably due to the release ofGrand Theft Auto Online. That was a good game in its own way but it’d be nice to see how you can evolve the main story with some downloadable content and not just give the option to buy in-game cash or new cars because nobody cares about that.
1Ignore: Bland Characters
This is going to divide some people but the fact of the matter is that these games have a lot of forgettable characters. Even the protagonists in this series are kind of hit or miss. Let’s be honest, while we all liked Tommy Vercetti, there isn’t really much to him in the sense of character. The same can be said about Trevor, who’s only memorable character trait is that he’s literally insane. Does Claude even need mentioning?
There have been some truly great characters in this franchise like Michael fromGrand Theft Auto V, Carl Johnson fromSan Andreasand evenNiko BellicfromGrand Theft Auto IVhas some merit to him. But, sometimes, characters can be forgotten or overshadowed due to other, more interesting characters or just not enough screen time. That’s why the villain ofGrand Theft Auto IVorVaren’t usually known to fans right away.
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