The entire gaming world is anticipating the next installment of Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) if the madness generated by GTA V is any indication.
GTA V was a groundbreaking game and raised the bar for all its other rivals. Now, the onus is on Rockstar to try and beat their past achievements.
There are numerous changes on the table and some involve throwbacks to fan favorite locations like Vice City, according to Leslie Benzies, president of Rockstar in an interview with IGN.
"It is always a possibility (referring to Vice City as a setting). There are a few references to the city in our current-gen GTAs so it is part of that HD universe, and it is certainly somewhere we would love to revisit. However Vice City, perhaps more than any other GTA game, was as much about the era as the setting. Miami in the 1980's is so iconic it would feel strange to revisit the city in a different time period," Benzies said.
The throwback to Miami in the 80s could be part of a grander plan to have "one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favorite areas" as Benzie said. GTA Vice City was one of the iconic titles that pushed the franchise to fame and most of the criticism towards the game was its size, eventually dwarfed by succeeding titles like GTA San Andreas.
There were other rumors circulating about the characters in GTA 6. One of them sought to have GTA set in London (which was a setting for an expansion in GTA 2D before) and also a proposal of incorporating a female character but Rockstar did not seem receptive about it. Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar, addressed this.
"I think for us, my gut feeling is, GTA London was cool for the time, but games were more limited then. These days I think we would love to set a game in the UK, set in London, whatever, but I don't know if it would be a GTA game."
He had a similar response for the female protagonist clamor. "In the future, could we do a game with a lead female character? Of course. We just haven't found the right game for it yet, but it's one of the things that we always think about. It didn't feel natural for this game but definitely for the right game in the future - with the right themes, it could be fantastic."
Perhaps a possible solution for the male/female character dilemma is to have fully customizable characters. This could be a challenge on how it would affect the storyline, but the fans want it, as expressed in a site dedicated to GTA6.
"GTA fans would love to customize the main character before playing the game. The customization of appearance, looks and cloths will be a great feature."
At this stage, it's not totally off the table yet and if they can't make a storyline for a female character, they might resort to this solution.