Donald Trump’s rise to political power and the COVID-19 pandemic won’t be direct subjects of Grand Theft Auto 6’s satire, according to new previews. Rockstar’s reasoning is about shelf life: with development taking years, a joke has to still land by the time players hear it.
Rockstar North studio head Rob Nelson discussed the problem with The New York Times earlier this summer. “We run the risk of dating ourselves in a sort of awkward way,” he said. “So we have to look at things and go, What is going to have a timeless sort of quality that will speak very easily to relatable sort of human folly and foibles and will be remembered as part of this time?”
The question for Rockstar isn’t whether to use satire, but which subjects to choose. Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto series has long mixed pointed social commentary with deliberately juvenile jokes. American culture has supplied plenty of possible material during the 13 years between Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto 6. For Nelson, familiar patterns of human behavior last longer than individual political developments or internet jokes, which date quickly.
In another preview, this time with IGN, Nelson linked those choices to the time needed to make the game: “Because we work on such a long development cycle, we have to not jump on stuff and instead choose our angle of approach carefully and decide what things are going to be a bit more timeless. We’re not a TV show coming out every week or every month. We have to be careful that what we’re choosing to satirize is not going to feel dated in a weird way. I think those broader things are OK to satirize, but very specific political issues or memes will date fast.”
That doesn’t necessarily rule out less direct references. The source report suggests Rockstar might touch on how conspiracy theories have entered mainstream culture. Such material could indirectly acknowledge developments connected to Trump and coronavirus without addressing either explicitly. This is still a possibility rather than a confirmed detail, and the form those references might take hasn’t been established.
The trailers already available don’t fit neatly into that divide, however. Earlier GTA 6 footage seemed to draw on popular memes, including apparent nods to the Florida Joker and several viral TikTok clips. Nevertheless, Nelson emphasized that he wants the game to feel “timeless.” Avoiding present-day slang is another part of Rockstar’s effort to keep the dialogue from showing its age.
The source article also suggests that players who treat GTA’s distorted reality as an escape may welcome the omission of those subjects. Nelson’s explanation, however, concerns the durability of the writing: it needs to survive the long stretch between the work of development and the game’s eventual release.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is scheduled to arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on Nov. 19.
