Hey there, Off-Balancers!
Super quickly, I’d just like to shoutout all of the new subscribers that have joined our community over the past little while. I’m so grateful for your continued support.
Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Ryan.
Grand Theft Auto V first released in September of 2013. As of this writing, almost ten years to the day.
And my initial intention, when starting this newsletter, was to label it the “game of its generation” but… it isn’t, is it?
Not really.
No, instead, it is the game of three generations, having been launched on the virtually every major gaming platform over the past decade - to say nothing of its behemoth of an online, multiplayer component, the payment-based Grand Theft Auto Online.
Consistently updated and expanded on, it continues to pull in billions-upon-billions of dollars in annual revenue for developer Rockstar Games.
It is the best-selling entertainment product in history. Full stop.
How then, does someone (read: me) do a retrospective on something that has never lessened its cultural grip?
How does a company that, most famously, made their name trading on the cynicism of modern America through their criminal protagonists, eagerly lampooning anything or anyone unfortunate enough to enter their crosshairs, truly adjust creatively, as now they’re the ones being prodded at?
Rockstar used to mock any celebrity within striking distance. Now? Dr Dre appears as himself in Online, stopping by to make a quick buck and shamelessly plug some new tracks.
How does a company, that liberally takes inspiration from all pop culture corners in their work, from movies to TV and everything else, present themselves when they’re now the culture?
It kinda fits, though. Doesn’t it?
Alternating between startling brilliance, impressive technical achievements and baffling, uncomfortable lows, there’s your nutshell.
GTA V.
Perfectly imperfect.
It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say Rockstar revolutionized gaming in the early 2000s.
2001’s Grand Theft Auto III, set players loose on a fully-explorable “open world” city, free to walk, drive around and explore at their leisure.
Others had previously laid groundwork but Rockstar, by bringing various elements into one 3D-space, tied it all together, just like the rug.
There had never been anything quite like it, immediately providing a blueprint, for both storytelling and gameplay that has been the medium benchmark for over twenty years.
Countless titles and developers, still draw on what Grand Theft Auto III pioneered, their own tweaks to the set-up notwithstanding.
But Rockstar? They were the best-of-the-best.
It was a formula they would meticulously refine over the following ten-plus years, in both succeeding Grand Theft Auto titles and their forays into genre work, such as the first Red Dead Redemption in 2010.
Bolstered by stronger hardware, technical improvements and sharp artistic design, their open-worlds, narratives and third-person action gameplay quickly became the gold standard, high praise that reflected their place as a somewhat begrudging industry frontrunner.
And with those developments, GTA’s storytelling and broader commentary grew too. More cinematic, more confident, more bold, more crass.
Nobody was safe.
From corporate America, to the upper, middle and lower classes. All degrees of the political spectrum and the government at large. Modern entertainment, from Hollywood and celebrity culture, too, somewhat ironically, gaming. Broader consumerism.
Any and all social demographics.
But with Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar was poised take another leap.
The biggest innovation was a series first with three playable protagonists, each, in their own way, reflecting the developer’s madcap interpretation of 2010s America.
It had only been five years since 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV but following Red Dead and 2011’s Team Bondi developed, Rockstar-published, L.A Noire, the bar had been raised.
And expectations were, maybe, just a little too high.
IV was the most genuine and serious, relatively-speaking, the series had ever been. It worked, incredibly well. But there was something to be said for the shift too.
The story of Niko Belic’s (Michael Hollick) search for The American Dream, in either ending, was riddled with pathos. IV’s stand-in for the New York metro-area, Liberty City, was often awash in dark tones and rain.
The driving was heavy, the gunplay, though strong, was more grounded, purposeful, lacking that certain “you’re playing a video game” fluidity.
Two paid expansions worked to bring more colour to the proceedings but the game was supported by its somewhat surprising realism, a degree removed from what Vice City, most notably and San Andreas brought to the table.
But V, they said, was going to strike all the right notes.
Michael (Ned Luke) was a retired bank robber and out-of-his-depth family man, drawn back into “the life” as he kinda-sorta mentored Franklin (Shawn Fonteno), an ambitious hustler - alongside the game’s third protagonist, Trevor (Steve Ogg).
Michael’s former partner-in-crime, Trevor, more than anyone else, was played-up in the marketing: a deranged, dangerous and rather intelligent meth-using maniac, for whom violence was always the answer.
Together, with the help of numerous supporting characters, they would carve a path of destruction through the game’s fictional Los Angeles (Los Santos) and Southern California (the state of San Andreas) at large.
Committing audacious robberies, getting entangled with corrupt government officials and criminal organizations both, as they tried to sort out their complex personal lives and keep their heads above water.
Meanwhile, the player was encouraged to engage with the world however they wanted. Free to swap between the three leads at any time off-mission, you could go golfing, play tennis or try your hand at BASE jumping.
Want to buy a couple sport cars, various businesses or work to manipulate the stock market? Go gunrunning? Deliver weed? You can.
Or maybe you’ll go for a coastal drive instead, encountering one of the various “Strangers” across the state, in multi-part side mission chains - from cult-following cannibals to nationalist rednecks.
It didn’t boost of the same level of detail or atmosphere that others, like 2016’s Watch Dogs 2 or the early Assassin’s Creed games mastered, though it was incredible nonetheless. And the fact that it still looks good, ten years later, is an achievement all its own.
But… did it work? What really, can be said about GTA V, now a decade on?
For one, the moment-to-moment gameplay remains the biggest strength.
When so much of your time is spent driving, shooting and diving for cover, you better hope these mechanics are given the proper amount of care - they were.
You never feel as through, specific story moments aside, that you’re not in control of the action.
Cover is strong and responsive, aiming is snappy, each shot, landing with the appropriate amount of weight but not to the point that you feel held back by the system. Vehicles too, handle differently and realistically, depending on what you’re driving.
A turbo-charged supercar will give you that initial advantage but you run the risk of losing control and crashing spectacularly in traffic. A four-door will be easier to handle but won’t be the best choice in a high-speed chase.
The protagonists, although they play more-or-less the same, have varying skills and abilities, each, feeling distinct.
Michael is best in a gunfight, Franklin is the strongest driver and Trevor, the most accomplished pilot, can also tap into his “Rage Mode”, allowing the player to take down as many enemies as they can while absorbing minimal damage for a limited time.
The sound design, the lighting, the smaller world-building choices, they all fead into the same central experience: impressive, given that the hardware it was originally built for is some sixteen years old, a lifetime in gaming, where consistent innovation is the standard.
Perfect? No.
The police response system, is, has been widely noted over the years, an absolute mess. No matter where you are in the world, commit only a somewhat minor crime (by the game’s standards) and the police will be on you immediately, taking any sort of risk-reward out of a system that desperately needs it.
It is a massive misstep in a game where you play as criminals (Rockstar would later address it with Red Dead Redemption II but that doesn’t help GTA V, does it?)
The controls too, despite their highs during combat, struggle as well, whenever it comes to flying or doing anything with specific dexterity, from moving shipping containers or using power tools, creating unnecessary frustration.
But the story itself? The larger commentary Rockstar was going for?
It felt tired in 2013 and it comes across as painfully out of place now, as everything in Los Santos is drenched in satirical commentary and juvenile discourse that just never stops.
And that, for me, will always be GTA V’s biggest failure.
Saying so much but in actuality, so little at all.
With GTA IV and Red Dead specifically, it didn’t seem off-base to think that Rockstar had somewhat evolved, matured, in their storytelling.
Those games? They didn’t hesitate to actually engage with the questions they raised, about the price of freedom, masculinity or the personal cost that came with a life of crime.
Flawlessly? Of course not.
But it was something.
GTA V, on the other hand, just couldn’t get out of its own way. Maybe it didn’t need too, maybe it didn’t want too, even with many of the same writers at the helm but because of that, it suffered.
Superficial, vapid.
An old man yelling at a cloud.
The people in charge, the billionaires, the one-percenters, don’t really care for the people below them? Social media has turned us all into phones-in-our-hands zombies? Would you believe that the federal government is throughly amoral at every level?
There’s no way! Please Rockstar, tell me something I don’t know.
Well, apparently torture doesn’t work - we’re told this just after the player, as Trevor, is forced to brutalize a presumably innocent civilian, on the vague pretence of “freedom” by some government goons and assassinate another as Michael.
Purposely shocking? Absolutely. But it never moves beyond that.
Played strongly though they are, written with consistent dialogue to boot, the three leads never really grow or develop, they never reconcile with their actions, with their drive for personal profit above all else.
They bicker and barb but they never really feel like friends either, with Trevor’s complicated past with Michael, ultimately sucking all oxygen out of the room in the back third of the narrative as their constant back-and-forth? It becomes exhausting.
The villains are there… and well, that’s kinda it. They’re there, with nothing to show for it and depending on the ending you chose (for the vast majority of players, it was one in particular) all those loose ends tie up far too neatly.
To ask why though, to wonder “why should anyone come across like a semi-real person? It’s a Grand Theft Auto game!”
Well because Rockstar had already proven they could do that, to a certain extent, in their previous titles.
They would prove it again in 2018, with Red Dead Redemption II, a prequel to the 2010 original that brilliantly grappled with themes so far out of V’s reach, it is laughable.
Instead, V’s narrative and characters feel nothing but hollow. Empty. Caricatures of the principals they’re supposedly critiquing.
Vessels for violence.
And that’s the overarching question.
What should these games be trying to say, if anything?
Because Rockstar was already beginning to stretch their “mayhem and madness” credibility card thin, even in 2008 and it simply doesn’t land now.
Grand Theft Auto has always promised an escape from, bluntly, real-world consequence. From a certain sense of morality.
You’re a criminal, free to sow chaos however you see fit, against civilians, law enforcement and anyone else who dares to get in your way. And whenever you die in-game, it is a reset. The slate is wiped clean and you’re free to start the cycle up again.
Expect… I don’t think I want to anymore.
Sure, it all seemed ridiculous ten-plus years ago and to an extent, it still is (there is some inherent humour baked into the whole thing) but… I don’t know.
Purposely driving through pedestrians on the sidewalk, as they scream in terror and run for their lives, it isn’t just some absurdist comedy anymore, if it ever was: it is the stark, difficult reality of the world we live it.
Our art doesn’t need to reflect every aspect but it should, at minimum, be respectful of it.
Compound this with the ugly and dehumanizing ways the franchise has frequently treated women and minority groups? Yeah, no thanks.
Yet, they’re a billion-dollar enterprise regardless. And money is money, as GTA Online has proven. So what’s next?
We’ll see.
The next Grand Theft Auto, whether it is VI or something else, was confirmed to exist in February, with no release date attached.
After a massive data leak last September, various details were unofficially revealed such as the setting (a return to Vice City) and the game’s protagonists (two and in a first for the series, one will be a woman).
Where will Rockstar take these games going forward? Nobody can say with any degree of certainty just yet. But to return to their usual shtick, their “we’ve offended everyone equally” routine, I don’t think it’ll fly anymore, nor should it.
Until that time comes though? There is GTA V.
A technical marvel, an impressive piece of craftsmanship on various levels. To suggest it is perfect though? Beyond reproach or criticism? That’s foolhardy.
It never was.