An official Grand Theft Auto 6 screenshot shows Jason and Lucia on the verge of a kiss, with a helicopter and several police boats surrounding them. Officers are aiming their guns at the couple. Some fans think the image may hint at the story’s ending, though its context is unknown.
With a month to go before the game’s Nov. 19 release, Rockstar has ramped up its marketing. Influencers, magazines, and news organizations have been publishing previews, while Rockstar has added details to its website, including information about the game’s radio stations, and released new screenshots. Rockstar hasn’t made much noise about the screenshots, though some have left fans slack-jawed.
At first glance, the screenshot looks like a tender moment between the protagonists, but look closer and Jason and Lucia are surrounded by law enforcement. A dangerous caper wouldn’t be unusual in a game about committing crimes, and many official screenshots show the pair narrowly avoiding the police. Some images may be promotional compositions that don’t depict anything in the final game; others appear to show story moments, like the mission that goes wrong in Netflix’s Extended Look video.
The evidence that Rockstar spoiled GTA 6’s ending
Rockstar has described GTA 6 as a Bonnie and Clyde-type story. The screenshot looks less like the 1967 film, in which police shoot Bonnie and Clyde for a frankly comical length of time, and more like the bittersweet ending of 2019’s Queen and Slim. Like the outlaw lovers in that film, Jason and Lucia appear to be caught. Rather than trying to run, they turn to face the police and hold hands. They seem unarmed and pose no threat, and appear on the verge of surrendering after sharing a tender moment, yet the film’s lovers are savagely shot down. The screenshot could be hinting at a similarly tragic fate, but it doesn’t establish that this is how GTA 6 ends.
It’s also possible Rockstar simply posed the characters in an embrace. But animating two characters touching is notoriously difficult. That’s why the kiss in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 trailer drew so much attention in 2018. Players can hold hands in GTA 6, and the lovers are presumably meant to kiss during the game’s rumored sex scenes. Still, this looks like the kind of bespoke animation that would make the most sense in a cutscene.
Could the police-boat screenshot depict one of the game’s possible endings? It has the drama of a climax, but the image alone can’t tell us whether it shows an ending, another story moment, or a promotional composition. Fans have reason to scrutinize Rockstar’s images: in 2013, the company shared artwork showing the protagonists standing around an open car trunk, months before Grand Theft Auto 5 came out. Much later, players realized the artwork depicted option C, Deathwish. In that ending, the characters kidnap antagonist Devin Weston, put him in a car, and execute him.
Rockstar’s GTA 5 artwork showed the protagonists around an open trunk months before players learned it depicted the Deathwish ending. The GTA 6 screenshot is more ambiguous: it could be an ending, another story moment, or a promotional composition.
