GTA 6 Is the First GTA Built to Encourage Empathy, Rockstar Says

Nelson tied the change to the story, not to rules imposed on the player. "We've tried for the first time in a GTA to provide mechanisms that encourage it, for those who want to," he said. The clearest of those mechanisms is the relationship between Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos. "The relationship is yours to nurture or yours to lose," Nelson said. "Whether it remains a romantic relationship is in your hands." The two text and call each other when they are apart, can go on dates to the gym, a bar, a meditation retreat or a liquor-store stick-up, and there is a button to make them hold hands. Neglect the relationship, and there are consequences.

The couple also start out small. Jason and Lucia cannot steal any car they like or walk straight into a bank. At the start they can only hotwire low-end vehicles and pick basic locks, working up to higher-value jobs later. "These guys are a younger couple with their backs against the wall," Nelson said. "Narratively, it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to go out and cause as much carnage and make as much noise as they can."

That caution extends to robberies. The feature describes scoping out a target first, whether a gas station or a mall boutique: disabling security cameras or stealing the footage, finding back doors and safe codes, and getting out before witnesses arrive. Skip the preparation and things escalate fast. A jewellery store robbery shown to the paper ended with a guard opening fire and a police chase across half a district.

None of this removes the freedom the series is known for, Nelson said, calling it one of the biggest challenges of the game's development to encourage different behaviour without restricting players. "We're trying to make sure we're not punishing people for playing the game they are used to … your actions will have some effect on how the game plays out." The smaller details point the same way. You can ask a passer-by if you can pet her dog, and Jason does. You can interrupt pedestrians mid-conversation. Pull out binoculars at the beach and a gull gets recorded in a wildlife logbook, which has 62 types of birds to spot.

The feature also addresses the thirteen-year wait since Grand Theft Auto V. Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar's head of licensing, said the team "would never stop working on this game if they had the choice," and that a quicker, safer sequel was an option Rockstar passed on. "They could have made GTA 5.5, and done it faster," she said. "Ultimately, that's not what they wanted." Nelson put it more bluntly: "You have to take big swings. It can't be just more of the same." He added that the limit is no longer technology but people: "You can throw money at the problem, and you can to an extent, but it's no guarantee of making something good." The game has been in development in some form since 2015, when the team took its first research trips to Miami. The paper also reports that many staff at Rockstar North are already taking time off ahead of launch. Take-Two confirmed development was complete on November 9.

Grand Theft Auto VI launches on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. No PC version has been announced.