Something new is coming to the Grand Theft Auto universe next year. I don’t mean super-high-definition visuals, or previously unexplored areas of Rockstar’s take on the US. This time it’s something much more profound. If you’ve seen the newly released second trailer from GTA6 – somewhat cruelly released just days after we discovered the gamewon’t be out until next May– then you might know what I mean. The brand new thing is romance.
It’s now clear that the key protagonists of the latest gangland adventure are Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, two twentysomething lovers from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s ex-army, now working for drug runners; she’s fresh out of jail, looking to make a better life for herself and her beloved mom. They fall for each other, hatch a plan to get out of Vice City, and then when their simple heist goes wrong, they find themselves at the sharp end of a state-wide conspiracy. You always knew that if Rockstar were going to tell a love story, it would involve a formidable cast of underworld kingpins, gang members, conspiracy nuts and corrupt politicians, and you were right.
But how will the writers look to establish a couple who fit the tone and mythos of the series, which has previously focused on incredibly damaged loners such as PTSD-haunted ex-soldier Niko Bellic and brain-fried sociopath Trevor Philips? Therehavebeen brief romantic entanglements in the games before – headstrong Catalina dallies with CJ in San Andreas , Mercedes Cortez is a flirtatious gangland accomplice to Tommy Vercetti in Vice City and then there’sthe curious affair of Trevor and Patricein GTA5 which is less Love Story and more Stockholm Syndrome. However, the emotional dynamics always played second fiddle to bloody heists and bullet-riddled car chases. The world of GTA is largely nihilistic – it’s every man for himself, the constant overtures toward brotherhood usually followed by brutal betrayals. The new GTA trailer though, shows a new sense of sincerity. “Instead of half-baked fantasies,” states the Rockstar website, “Lucia is prepared to take matters into her own hands. A life with Jason could be her way out.”
It’s likely the writers will look for inspiration where they always have: the movies. With its sun-bathed violence and flashy cars, Vice City paid glorious homage to Scarface and Miami Vice; GTA: San Andreas was in thrall to the early 1990s South Central LA movies of John Singleton and the Hughes Brothers; GTA 4 breathed in The French Connection as well as the Russian gangster flick, Brother. Already GTA6 is being compared to that most obvious of cinematic sources: Bonnie and Clyde. It is after all another story of troubled lovers willing to risk everything for a bank job or two. But Rockstar has doubtless also studied The Getaway, Sam Peckinpah’s sexiest and most successful film,Terrence Malick’s Badlandswith its thrillingly blank and disaffected couple, and Tony Scott’s True Romance, for its combination of fantastical comic book love affair and high octane violence. Natural Born Killers and even the more recentLove Lies Bleedingmay also have provided more quasi surreal inspiration.
Whatever the case, it’s coming at the right time. For all their satirical, deliriously amoral brilliance, the GTA titles have often lacked a softer edge; the relationship dynamics always tied up in broken families and hyper-masculine gangland codes of honour. This is a series that has also never had a female lead protagonist before; new dynamics are coming into play.
Maybe GTA will handle romance the same way that it handled friendships in the past – notably Roman and Niko in GTA 4 – as a contrast to the darkness and violence, but also as something that intensifies the risks. We can be fairly sure there won’t be much player involvement in the course of the relationship – GTA is not a role-playing adventure in the strict sense, there aren’t dozens of dialogue trees with multiple choice responses; you can guide the story through actions but not words. But I do wonder what the writers will have learned by watching how people behave in the still hugely popular multiplayer spin-off,GTA Online, and how the dedicated role-playing servers have opened up to virtual relationships and flirting.
Whatever, I’m rooting for Lucia and Jason. They’re clearly among the most attractive characters the series has ever seen – the internet isalready shipping them. Rockstar’s art team are great at getting us to study bodies, but usually they are ugly reminders of inner corruption; these two are hot and not only that, they’re hot for each other. Perhaps Rockstar has seen, with the current state of the world (and perhaps the success ofThe Last of Us), that some heartfelt romantic yearning is required. Next May, there will be love as well as bullets in the air.