Time waits for no one – not even GTA 6. It’s been almost 15 months since that first trailer broke across the internet like a burst dam, its contents soaking into the very marrow of Western pop culture and reflecting it back at us. The game’s cinematic reveal seemed to have its finger on the pulse of everything 2023, from doomscrolling to twerking, showing off on social media, Instagram Lives, and even a surprise appearance from the viral Florida Joker. It felt oddly prescient. If Rockstar had been hard at work on this trailer for ages, how did it echo that moment in time so accurately?
But that was back in 2023. Just this morning I had to look up the trailer to rewatch it and remind myself what about it had us all feeling so seen by GTA 6 over a year ago. While the digital world hasn’t changed that dramatically since December 2023, something about how current Rockstar is trying to be with its pop culture references has me concerned that GTA 6 might be DOA – dated on arrival.
#Relatable?
The thought struck me while watching a YouTube video about Two and a Half Men. Specifically, on the topic of how its showrunners deliberately avoided making timely jokes to prevent the show aging out of its own humor. The goal was to create a timeless sitcom, one that would be considered (subjectively) funny for years to come. It’s the antithesis of what Rockstar Games has always done with Grand Theft Auto, and for once, that fact has me worried.
We all know Rockstar Games is good at satire. Poking fun at society while using humor to make thinly-veilled statements about it has long been GTA’s modus operandi, allowing each instalment of the action series to tap into the zeitgeist and feel very much “built for” its audience at the time of release. But with that comes the very real risk of outdated references, and this time, I’m not talking about playing GTA Liberty City Stories 19 years later. Already, some elements of the GTA 6 trailer are at odds. The references can feel both too sharply related to its 2023 release, and too generally hinged on the current decade to feel all that precise. The combination makes its feeling of currency, in hindsight, a bit of an illusionary magic trick on Rockstar’s part.
The exponential speed at which topicality fades into nostalgia is staggering…
I can hardly blame the studio. It’s been 12 years since GTA 5 launched, and compared to the five that separated GTA 4 from its next mainline instalment, the road to GTA 6 currently amounts to the longest development cycle for a Grand Theft Auto game in franchise history. This gulf of time makes it far too risky for Rockstar to go all-in on the meta humor where the erratic natures of social media and meme trends are concerned. It’s especially true considering the smaller seismic shifts therein over recent months; a mass Twitter/X exodus for one, and the near-banning of TikTok in the US for another. With this in mind, the GTA 6 trailer becomes something of a time capsule to a simpler time – despite only having launched a year and three months ago. The exponential speed at which topicality fades into nostalgia is staggering, thanks in no small way to the Internet’s “gift” of instant gratification. Yesterday’s viral hit is today’s nobody. I’d hate to see GTA 6 fall foul of that trap with all its meta references.
But as a cinematic introduction to GTA 6, there’s no telling whether the game itself will actually feature any of the announcement trailer’s content. Perhaps the Florida Joker will be nixed after having faded well into obscurity over the last 15 months, and perhaps Rockstar will find a clever way of acknowledging the “new” America in its game when it releases during President Trump’s second term. That said, the keen, socially relevant edges of the trailer’s cutting bite are slowly being dulled over time – and I hope Rockstar is lighting a fire under its own ass to swerve that risk.
GTA 6 will “push the limits of what’s possible” in open-world games, says Rockstar co-founder
