There are two mazes in the gaming world this year, one is "When will Blizzard's national server return?" and the other is "Is that game finally coming?", and as long as these two topics are involved, it is like being involved in an endless maze, and there is no way to get around.
Since R Star officially announced the smooth development of GTA's new work last year, various analyses and speculations have pushed the heat to a high point in the past year. It wasn't until November 8 this year that R Star said that it would release a preview in early December. With more than 150 million views in 24 hours, the message is the most popular tweet in history with just one trailer.
This morning, R Star released the first official trailer for GTA 6, which is the final word. Whether it is the restlessness of the players or the countless speculations in the industry, there is a place to put it at this moment, and all the illusions in the maze have become a thing of the past.
Suddenly, half a life, return to the city of sin
Interestingly, this announcement was supposed to be lifted at 10 p.m. today (December 5, Beijing time). The official tweet of R Star said that due to the leak, the trailer can be seen directly on the oil pipe. Based on the madness of the previous teaser news, this trailer is likely to be the fastest YouTube video in history to break 100 million views.
The first trailer for GTA6 mainly shows the style of the game's "world", that is, it focuses more on portraying the local customs. Flocks of flamingos, wetlands, street culture, beaches, palm trees and other elements made our first impression of the new work——— dreaming of returning to Miami.
It has been previously revealed that the work will add a female protagonist for the first time, and this trailer also confirms this. There's also speculation about whether we'll see Tommy from Old Vice City in GTA 6. However, R Star made it clear that he would not let the characters and events in the old work reappear, but he would bury many easter eggs related to the previous work.
In addition, the highest expectation for this trailer may be the expressiveness of AI, and there is no doubt that the smoothness of NPC movements and the level of character AI in "GTA6" are ahead of the line. Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, the parent company of R-Star, mentioned in an interview that he thinks AI-based game NPCs are "interesting" and claims that Take-Two will invest as much in AI technology as other manufacturers.
If it's a little more specific, someone once launched from the patent applied for by R star.,This AI can autonomously assign animation modules to make more complex movements.。 For example, in PV, you can find that NPCs of different sizes have different running movements, and you can also see residents watering and catching crocodiles.
In GTA 5, the cars on the road can run in an orderly manner, but they can't handle complex road conditions at all, such as NPCs scratching when reversing. From the trailer of the 6th generation, we can see that the traffic logic of this vehicle is more complicated, such as the speed of the car at the bottom is significantly higher than that of the truck behind, and a large number of motorcycles have no accidents when passing through intersections.
Also according to the previous patent, NPCs driving motorcycles in this game may have different driving behaviors than NPCs driving cars. And the speed of different models will be different, and the speed of the same car in different areas will also be different...
In addition, we can also find that many of the pictures in the trailer have a UI that is only available in short videos and live broadcasts, so this game is likely to add social platforms like "TikTok" in the game, so that players can get double the happiness of "watching short videos in the game".
Perhaps because of the first trailer, R Star doesn't need to use something eye-catching to prove how free and open his "New Sin City" is, and the protagonist at the end of the film only came to the convenience store to "take care" of some business, and the events such as bank robbery, stealing nuclear bombs, and bombing military bases that players want to see have not appeared.
Commissary robbery
Although this promotional video is not an actual operation screen, according to the previous trailer style, at least it is directly rendered by the game engine, and the game is only high in terms of graphic expression after its release. In the future, I believe that there will be a large number of videos analyzed from various angles such as culture, gameplay, setting, easter eggs, etc., to offer fans who have been waiting for nearly 10 years to offer not very satisfying, but precious "spiritual food".
From suspicion to shock, it only takes ten years
How long is ten years? Ten years is a time for players to witness the rise of Zelda and the Souls-like games. Ten years will also allow players to wait for the sequel to Baldur's Gate, Mounting, and Slashing in their lifetimes. However, for R stars, ten years may not be a period of "rushing to get on the horse", but for countless fans, it is a rather torturous period.
In fact, the news about GTA6 has been coming out non-stop since ten years ago. Long before the release of "GTA5", the former president of R Star said that the creative concept of "GTA6" began to brew in 2012.
Shortly after the release of the 5th generation, someone discovered that R Star was working on a "next-generation work for a well-known game" based on the resume of a senior graphics engineer at R Star, and this work was likely to be "GTA 6". Later, an uncle said that a foreign media broke the news that "the map of GTA6 is as big as the United States." "It is suspected that the internal PPT leaked out, leaking the release date of "GTA6".
In July 2018, rumors appeared on various social media platforms that "GTA6 will be released in 2019" due to an in-game push received by players. Later, the R Star official came forward to clarify, saying, "This is actually a prank by the MOD author, not the official news of the R Star." ”
Recently, according to the financial report of R Star, some people speculated that "GTA6" will be released before the end of March 2025. "In fiscal year 2025, we generated more than $8 billion in operating revenue and more than $1 billion in adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow through several blockbuster products." ”
It is important to know that R-Star currently expects net revenue of $5.4-5.5 billion in fiscal year 2024. And games that can bring in more than a billion dollars in revenue in a short period of time are at least the same magnitude as GTA5, because GTA5 is the fastest game in gaming history to exceed $1 billion in sales.
Although these news have eye-catching elements, they are not yet "criminal". If you want to say that the most serious revelation is the "Project Americas" in September 2022, a hacker exposed 90 "GTA6" development videos, and even the FBI participated in the investigation, which can be called the biggest revelation in the history of the game. Since R Star personally came forward to clarify and take first aid measures for this revelation, the content of the leak is extremely credible.
True and false, false and true, players have long been PTSD about the news about "GTA6", and even summed up a set of special theories, to the point of almost being stunned.
GTA6 Fake Material Cycle Diagram
During the Halloween event some time ago, almost any post pushed down by R Xingguan could find relevant speculations and hints from fans.
Forcibly wrote VI on the diagram and gave his own explanation
Maybe the official himself can't stand it, and directly "join if you can't beat it", the following promotional picture generously added the keyword "VI", and stopped acting at all, so that fans can see the meaning at a glance.
At this year's Gamescom, there were people who rushed to the podium and shouted "GTA6!I want to play GTA6!GTA6!". According to previous reports, the intruder, named Tasher, has broken into the live show at least three times, and each time he has been asking "when will GTA 6 be released"?
There is also a netizen in China whose ID is "**Qin" who has fallen into a "magic stun", and will brush GTA6 under all videos or messages related to "GTA6" on the whole network.
It wasn't until R Star officially announced the news last month that the emotions of fans finally broke out, and many foreign industry insiders, such as editor-in-chief Jez Corden and actor Ben Starr, posted on Twitter about their changes in the past few years from 5 to 6 generations in order to commemorate this special moment, lamenting the passage of time, and a little banter in the bitterness.
How long can the high investment and high return last?
For most players, GTA: Vice City may be the first triple-A game in their lives, and the crime, violence, and erotic elements in the game have a natural and strong appeal.
R Star's work inevitably has some controversial content on the surface. The former "hot coffee" incident made R star fall into a trough for a while, and "Grand Theft Monster" and "Bully Rooney" and other "experimental" works were even banned in many countries.
But as the player's experience grows, the side of R Star sniffing roses is gradually discovered. Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in a period of transition from the decline of traditional American crafts to an industrial society: Indians were brutally suppressed and persecuted by colonizers, and blacks and yellows from the ocean were also subjected to racism and discrimination.
These are actually very taboo in the United States, but in the game they are unreservedly expressed.
The game of R Star not only stays at the surface of "rebellion", but also uses a unique perspective to "satirize" various social cruxes under the big narrative, which is not "politically correct" from our point of view, but at least it does not cater to and does not take sides. Overseas media have bluntly commented that "the GTA series is too politically correct".
The game doesn't make people violent, but the network lag does
Also from Red Dead Redemption 2, we can see the idealistic side of R Star. "Red Dead Redemption 2" has been sharpening a sword for eight years, and it is the only masterpiece from R Star in the past ten years. The success of Red Dead Redemption 2 is obvious to all, the RAGE8 engine brings top-notch light and shadow performance and a lifelike NPC interaction system, and also provides movie-level design in the plot and camera movement.
While gaining word of mouth, it also raises a very practical question, how many manufacturers are willing to invest nearly ten years of hard work in a project?
Early Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, EA's Need for Speed and Battlefield are actually not inferior to GTA. Although these manufacturers continue the "high investment and high return" 3A production style, they are obviously reluctant to let the game production cycle exceed 5 years.
They prefer to choose a path that is less risky and more fault-tolerant. Ubisoft, for example, has become synonymous with "Ubisoft-style open world" and with the exception of Assassin's Creed: Mirage, the development model of the series is very formulaic, with one released almost every year. The Far Cry series is also an inexhaustible stronghold and question mark. But at least there's going to be a piece of boutique that holds up Ubisoft's cards. EA has gone the opposite route altogether in recent years, keen to pre-sell semi-finished games at high prices, or make some quick money from memberships.
Looking back at R Star itself, "GTA5" alone has sold nearly 190 million copies, and even the "GTA Trilogy Remake", which has a collapsed reputation, can sell more than 14 million copies with this golden sign. In the case of layoffs from major game companies such as Epic, Ubisoft, and CD Projekt, R Star survived. R stars who have achieved such results, they do have the confidence to go all the way to the dark.
epilogue
For most people, when judging a game that has not yet been released, they can only rely on the performance of previous manufacturers and their own feelings. Although feelings and experiences are not objective, the game itself is not so objective.
Company B is backed by Microsoft, and "Starry Sky", which has also been developed for 8 years, is "not starry" on the TGA annual nomination list. Judging from the Steam praise rate of "Starry Night", it has become the worst product in the history of B Company. A few months after its launch, the number of people online didn't even match that of The Elder Scrolls 5.
And who would have thought that in order not to hit the "Starfield" schedule, "Baldur's Gate 3", which was released a month in advance, stood out among other games, which was something that even the founder of Larian did not predict.
No one can point to a product and say, I have put in years of hard work, invested hundreds of millions of dollars, and then it will be liked by everyone.
As R-Star's slogan says, "Our goal is to be the best game company we can be". In the eyes of most people, they have traced the journey and found the star. But for the R star, there is still a long way to go, and the real rock "star" is still ahead.