Grand Theft Auto 6′s second trailer is packed with a lot of action, crime, and vehicular mayhem. This is the kind of stuff you expect to see in a GTA game. But what it also contains is something we’ve never really seen before in a Grand Theft Auto sequel: a couple cuddling and having a real relationship. And that’s the part of GTA 6 that surprised me the most.
Released on May 6 with no warning, Grand Theft Auto 6‘s second trailer arrived over a year after its first and featured a lot more of Jason and Lucia, the two main characters in this upcoming Rockstar open-world sequel set in Vice City and its surrounding state of Leonida. We already knew that this new sequel would feature the couple in a big way, but that trailer seems to suggest that Rockstar is aiming to make them a believable, relatable, and dare I say, cute couple.
One moment that really stuck out to me in the trailer as something we’ve never really seen in a GTA game before happens at the very end. Jason is laying on the couch half asleep and watching TV. Lucia enters the living room, tosses her keys on the table and collapses onto Jason to cuddle with him. It’s the kind of moment that most people in loving relationships have experienced. Your significant other gets back from a big trip, a hard day at work, or some other grueling experience and lands directly next to or on top of you for some comfort and love. It’s a cute and genuine moment. And it’s in the middle of a GTA trailer! Strange.
This is a franchise that has mostly treated relationships as jokes. Think back to how CJ and Catalina are portrayed in GTA San Andreas. She’s a lunatic and frequently called horrible names. Similarly, in GTA V Michael’s relationship with his wife is shown to be a mostly toxic and hostile experience that only gets better at the end due to violence. There’s also the bit in GTA V where Trevor kidnaps an old woman and they fall in love. And the earlier GTA games, like Vice City, mostly treated relationships as silly punchlines about how women are annoying and controlling. In GTA 3, after saving the woman he apparently “loves,” Claude shoots her offscreen for talking too much! Yikes. The closest GTA has ever gotten to a real relationship is Nico and Kate in GTA IV. But that’s barely part of the game, and if you choose the wrong option she gets gunned down by the end.
However, in the trailer for GTA 6, we see Jason and Lucia being a real couple. They seem genuinely enthralled with each other. The moment where Jason picks Lucia up out of prison and they smile warmly for a second is so unlike anything in GTA before. And throughout the trailer we see them snuggling, getting intimate, holding each other, kissing, dancing together, and even at one point holding hands. In a series that has featured so much violence and sex, it’s surreal to see two people in love and holding hands.
Now the real question is: will Rockstar be able to pull off a full 30-70 hour game featuring a relatable and caring relationship? I don’t know. We are truly in uncharted waters for this franchise right now. But I hope they nail it. I think if Jason and Lucia’s relationship is the core of GTA 6‘s story, it could help it not only stand out from past GTA games, but it could signal that Rockstar has grown up a bit.
Sure, it will still put in silly joke products and background signs that make me roll my eyes. But if, at the front and center of this massive AAA video game, there’s a realistic and well-done take on a real relationship between two people, that would be a wild accomplishment that I didn’t expect from a franchise famous for letting you kill sex workers to get your money back.
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