// THE VERGE — GAMING
The biggest video game of all time looks like a movie
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Rockstar’s GTA VI preview further blurs the lines between Hollywood and gaming.
Rockstar’s GTA VI preview further blurs the lines between Hollywood and gaming.
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I think I know why Rockstar Games debuted its “extended look” of Grand Theft Auto VI on Netflix instead of immediately dropping it for free on YouTube. Unlike most video game trailers, the almost 27-minute preview of GTA VI felt more like a slice of a prestige crime drama than any video game trailer that I’ve ever seen. To make a new game that lasts another decade or more and potentially rivals the success of its predecessor, Rockstar is clearly trying to further blur the lines between Hollywood and video games.
The line between games and movies has been getting consistently fuzzier. Look no further than this year’s James Bond game, 007 First Light, which has the snappy pacing, acting, and cinematography of a great action film. And TV shows and movies are increasingly pulling from video games for inspiration, to say nothing of entire TV and movie franchises being built around successful video games. Now, a video game trailer has wedged between prestige TV and streaming hit movies — after watching the GTA VI preview, Netflix is suggesting I watch Breaking Bad next.
Rockstar is keeping GTA VI’s plot details close to its chest, but the video gives the broad strokes: GTA VI is about protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos working together in Vice City. Across the tightly-edited video, which jumps between cutscenes and moments of actual gameplay, Jason and Lucia do a lot of GTA-style crimes: they evade cops in gunfights, pull off high-stakes robberies, and shoot a lot of people. But they also have moments of chatting leisurely in the car or even bickering about what clothes to wear.