Back in 2022, Bloomberg reported that “Rockstar Games cleaned up its frat-boy culture – and Grand Theft Auto, too.” The changes took shape in different ways, from less crunch to a narrowing of the gender pay gap for workers at the studio, and to the introduction of the game’s first playable female character, a Latina named Lucia. And now, in the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, we’re seeing that the game’s marketing has changed a bit from previous entries, too.
To illustrate the difference, let’s go back in time to the marketing of smash hit GTA 5, which was released in 2013. The game’s first trailer came out in 2011, its second in 2012. There were three protagonists, and both of the trailers feature a lot of voiceover from Michael de Santa (Ned Luke), a career criminal who’s now seeing a therapist as part of a Tony Soprano-esque midlife crisis. The trailers mostly focus on action; there are exciting car chases and a big crime spree involving collaboration between the three main characters, although the other two don’t get as much screen time as Michael in these first two trailers.
The series’ sense of humor — which arguably does skew towards making fun of right-wing targets, despite the series’ notorious depiction of sex workers and women in general — isn’t really on display. But it is clear from GTA 5’s early marketing that the three protagonists are very much antiheroes. You might be playing as them, but you aren’t necessarily going to agree with what they’re doing. That’s fine. You’re here to do crimes and embrace your id, after all, so playing as somebody unlikable makes sense, right?
GTA 6’s early marketing has a different vibe. These first two trailers are much more focused on character drama rather than pure action. Also, while Jason and Lucia are clearly antiheroes as well, clearly resorting to a life of crime, these trailers also make them seem … well, likable. Especially Lucia.
The first GTA 6 trailer puts Lucia front and center first thing, giving her a quick character-building conversation with somebody who appears to be a prison social worker. (It’s pretty easy to contrast this with the opening of the second GTA 5 trailer, which features two unnamed women screaming at each other in the background, right before Michael’s voiceover begins.) This focus makes sense given that Lucia is one of our two lead characters. But in addition to being our first playable female protagonist in GTA, she’s also depicted in this trailer as sympathetic. Partway through, Lucia tells the social worker that “bad luck” must have been what got her into prison, and she doesn’t seem like she’s cracking a joke there.
The second GTA 6 trailer has even more character-building for Jason and Lucia. Jason seems like the less likable of the pair, given that he has a moment of punching a Black cashier before opening up the register (this appears to be part of the duties he performs for a landlord friend who lets Jason live rent-free in exchange for this type of “rent collection”). But through a series of small, intimate moments, from Jason picking Lucia up from her prison stint to the pair of them palling around an apartment together, cuddling after Lucia gets home from her community service hours still wearing her orange vest, you can’t help but kinda root for these two.
Another striking part of the latest GTA 6 trailer is its depiction of police violence. By contrast, here’s how GTA 5’s first trailer depicted the police: There’s a quick shot of a Black police officer throwing a white guy out of a building, and then a separate scene of Black protagonist Franklin running away from a trio of cops. The police don’t have much presence in the second GTA 5 trailer, outside of some background siren noises during a car chase. They’re villains, yes, but that villainy isn’t the focus of those trailers — and certainly not in a “here’s some prescient commentary on systemic racism” type of way.
GTA 6’s second trailer devotes more precious seconds to a very different type of scene. As Jason drives slowly down a city street, we can see a huge arrest going down in the background, with multiple Black suspects being detained and several police cars pulled over at the site. We see a white police officer shoving one of these men; another officer has a Black man pushed up against a brick wall. In a later scene, we see a police officer character announcing to a bullpen, “Us cops, we’ve gotta protect each other.” The implication is clear — the cops are like just another gang on the streets, protecting their own. But more specifically, they’re a gang that’s implied to have a racist bent. Put that together with the imprisonment of Lucia and it all fits.
Image: Rockstar Games
The latest GTA 6 trailer also includes a quick commercial for “Phil’s Ammu-Nation,” a gun shop whose owner boasts, “We got more guns than the law allows!” He picks up a rifle while two women in American flag bikinis pose behind him, also holding rifles. The commercial then cuts to this guy standing on the roof of his store, blindly firing bullets into the air and shooting, “Woo-hooooo!” It’s pretty clear from the editing here that we are supposed to hate this dude and everything he represents. And what he represents is “American patriotism.” Fair enough.
Now, we don’t know what GTA 6 is actually going to be like when we have access to the full game, and we’ve got a long while to wait for it still — a year, to be exact. But it’s already clear from the short scenes we have here that Rockstar’s marketing department has some specific conclusions it wants to hammer home in these trailers.
And they are as follows: The police can’t be trusted. America-first gun nuts are weird losers. Last but not least, Lucia is our hero, and she’s the one you’re going to be able to relate to the most in this story — while also being a Latina woman whose “bad luck” put her in prison, which is something you should feel sympathetic rather than judgmental about, and whose life of crime might just be the only way she can survive.
That sounds like a very different kind of GTA story. And it also sounds like a fascinating one.
