Poll: Where should GTA VI be set?

[Laughing Man]

Well that's fucking depressing.

Not as depressing as the amount of cash Rockstar have not only made from the game itself but the Shark Card sales attached to the online part of the game and it looks like they spent not one cent on making the infrastructure capable of supporting it. I've said it in a few GTA threads the whole online system is like a house of cards, every new DLC they add adds to the top of that house and one day they will add a DLC that will cause the whole lot to just fall over.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Hong Kong would be pretty cool.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

A new city I hope. I also hope that the campaign will have co-op with your own created characters.

 

[mardocOz]

For the satire in GTA to work the setting and culture need to feel familiar for the audience, which rules out any games set outside of the US.

Why?

Are you suggesting that an American audience is not familiar enough with the stereotypical portrayal of other western nations to find entertainment?

A game set in London would be fine. If you want to be boring you could go for a whole Guy Ritchie thing. You play as Vinnie Jones caving people's heads in with car doors and speaking "All proper, like. Innit." Gangsters, high speed chases around the familiar landmarks, steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower, you could even go into the countryside and have to deal with the yokels of South-West England. Driving tractors around the moors and going scrumping. Proper job.

A game set in Melbourne would be fine. There's a serious message to be said there with the Aboriginal situation and the current levels of Islamophobia occuring across the country right now, "Stop the boats" and all that. But I'm sure you can all think of a million "Chazwozza" type jokes to be made a la The Simpsons or Crocodile Dundee or something. I dunno, the writers at Rockstar are smarter than I am, they could easily come up with something.

Hell if you wanted something a bit different, a game set in Tokyo would be fine. I don't think I even need to give any examples, the potential speaks for itself. The Yakuza, driving around Akihabara, drifting through the mountain roads, neon, kawaii bullshit, so many potential parodies...

We've got numerous people in here saying that the GTA games are getting stale with the same American City setting. If they wanted to mix it up a bit, without visiting a different time period again, setting it overseas is an excellent way to do that. I don't think that alienates the American fans at all.

 

[WolfThomas]

A lot of hate for the online. I find it heaps of fun. Especially if you have good friends. I mean it's coop gta? The opportunities for fun are endless. Sure people pay real money to buy stuff. But it's not like it's pay to win. You still die to the same amount of bullets.

 

[stroopwafel]

A lot of hate for the online. I find it heaps of fun. Especially if you have good friends. I mean it's coop gta? The opportunities for fun are endless. Sure people pay real money to buy stuff. But it's not like it's pay to win. You still die to the same amount of bullets.

Well, the online is fine if it's just a supplement to the main game but the fact we never got any story DLC for GTA5 is probably a bad sign. The online part of GTA5 is such a cash cow for Rockstar that it would definitely make sense for the next game(from a business perspective) to be an online game. I don't think that will necessarily happen but I do think the online part of GTA6 will dominate the development process much more. Probably at the detriment of the SP experience(again similarly to GTA5 and its DLC).

 

[Totenkreuz]

I would enjoy it being somewhere in South America. Tropical weather with deep forests and tall cloudy mountains would be such a great place.

But aslong as it's not set in Great Britain I'm happy. My god, the news there would be 99% about some idiot driving on the WRONG side of the road! ;P

Cheers.

 

[Rangaman]

For the satire in GTA to work the setting and culture need to feel familiar for the audience, which rules out any games set outside of the US.

The US is not the only nation that can be satirized, I can think of plenty of ways to take the piss out of the English, the Australians, the Japanese (the three most requested so far) and plenty of other nations.

America is definitely the easiest nation to take the piss out of though.

 

[Breakdown]

For the satire in GTA to work the setting and culture need to feel familiar for the audience, which rules out any games set outside of the US.

Why?

Are you suggesting that an American audience is not familiar enough with the stereotypical portrayal of other western nations to find entertainment?

Yes. It's an international audience, rather than American, but American culture is the most dominant.

If you think about all of the various radio stations in the previous games, the television shows, and the pop culture references, there isn't enough familiarity with other cultures to provide that level of satire. There is zero chance of a GTA game set entirely outside of the USA. The best you could hope for is some kind of border location with Mexican, Canadian or even Cuban locations.

 

[mardocOz]

There is zero chance of a GTA game set entirely outside of the USA.

Does this include the one that's already happened?

I fear you may have missed my point, although by doing so you have made another valid one for me. I'm aware that it's an international audience and they would be keen to see a GTA game in another setting, but my point was more that an American audience would have little to no difficulty in adjusting to a game set in another locale. Especially if you were to say the main character (or one of the main characters) was a displaced American.

For example, a GTA game set in London could have you play as an American, a Brit, and... I dunno... a Russian. Or someone from Poland. All in London for different reasons, all caught up in the criminal underworld and they end up working together. Now SURELY Americans are familiar enough with their British cousins to be aware of at least some of the stereotypes?

Think about it. Snooty posh British types (like the weird old couple stealing celeb rubbish in GTA V), the criminal gangsters (think any Guy Ritchie movie), chavs and hoodies, weird "local" types from rural villages (a la The League of Gentlemen or Shaun of the Dead), football (soccer) hooligans, heck I'm sure you could make some jokes about how much Americans don't understand cricket. And that's off the top of my head. There's so much room for parody, all of it I'm sure an American audience would understand.

"Yes, London. You know. Fish? Chips? Cup o' tea? Bad food? Worse weather? Mary-fuckin'-Poppins? London!"

 

[Breakdown]

There is zero chance of a GTA game set entirely outside of the USA.

Does this include the one that's already happened?

I fear you may have missed my point, although by doing so you have made another valid one for me. I'm aware that it's an international audience and they would be keen to see a GTA game in another setting, but my point was more that an American audience would have little to no difficulty in adjusting to a game set in another locale. Especially if you were to say the main character (or one of the main characters) was a displaced American.

For example, a GTA game set in London could have you play as an American, a Brit, and... I dunno... a Russian. Or someone from Poland. All in London for different reasons, all caught up in the criminal underworld and they end up working together. Now SURELY Americans are familiar enough with their British cousins to be aware of at least some of the stereotypes?

Think about it. Snooty posh British types (like the weird old couple stealing celeb rubbish in GTA V), the criminal gangsters (think any Guy Ritchie movie), chavs and hoodies, weird "local" types from rural villages (a la The League of Gentlemen or Shaun of the Dead), football (soccer) hooligans, heck I'm sure you could make some jokes about how much Americans don't understand cricket. And that's off the top of my head. There's so much room for parody, all of it I'm sure an American audience would understand.

"Yes, London. You know. Fish? Chips? Cup o' tea? Bad food? Worse weather? Mary-fuckin'-Poppins? London!"

I just don't think so. The cockney gangster films, have they actually been all that successful, internationally? I think their global cultural impact is overestimated. In any case London wouldn't have much environmental diversity either. Forget about mountains and deserts.

 

[Zombie Proof]

There is zero chance of a GTA game set entirely outside of the USA.

Does this include the one that's already happened?

I fear you may have missed my point, although by doing so you have made another valid one for me. I'm aware that it's an international audience and they would be keen to see a GTA game in another setting, but my point was more that an American audience would have little to no difficulty in adjusting to a game set in another locale. Especially if you were to say the main character (or one of the main characters) was a displaced American.

For example, a GTA game set in London could have you play as an American, a Brit, and... I dunno... a Russian. Or someone from Poland. All in London for different reasons, all caught up in the criminal underworld and they end up working together. Now SURELY Americans are familiar enough with their British cousins to be aware of at least some of the stereotypes?

Think about it. Snooty posh British types (like the weird old couple stealing celeb rubbish in GTA V), the criminal gangsters (think any Guy Ritchie movie), chavs and hoodies, weird "local" types from rural villages (a la The League of Gentlemen or Shaun of the Dead), football (soccer) hooligans, heck I'm sure you could make some jokes about how much Americans don't understand cricket. And that's off the top of my head. There's so much room for parody, all of it I'm sure an American audience would understand.

"Yes, London. You know. Fish? Chips? Cup o' tea? Bad food? Worse weather? Mary-fuckin'-Poppins? London!"

"Avi!"
"Shut up and sit down you big bald fuck!" *Love that fuckin movie*

You make excellent points all around but the fact of the matter is that setting GTA outside of the us seems to fall contrary to Rockstar's gameplay design in every gta since III.

They all offer up morally ambiguous criminal leads.
They all satirize American pop culture.
They all borrow heavily from the crime films of Michael Mann and Brian De Palma for the tone of their criminal underworld.
They all make driving the most important and accessible mode of travel.
Minutia like speeding, gas managment, and traffic rules never apply.
No children characters. Tracy and James from V seem like exceptions to the rule but they're old enough to both drive and engage in adult activities without raising too much of an eyebrow.
The genre will be contemporary. Never sci-fi or historical.
The overall tone of the story will be a combination of heavy drama and comedy (think Carlito's Way).

It's fun to wonder what or where their next game will take place but a safe bet would be to keep your guesses within the parameters above or risk disappointment.

 

[Tanis]

I think the issue with setting GTA outside of the USA is that most, Western, countries aren't as lax with their gun laws.

It would be kind of unheard of to see someone in Australia shooting up civilians in the streets, unless you set it back in the 80s or something and even then...

The US of A is kind of, uh...great(?)...when it comes to violence.
I mean, this country FEEDS of it.

We couldn't even pass any kind of background check laws, even when 90+ of the population wants it, because the NRA and their bitches in DC ain't got the stones to do it.
Shit, we've had little kids being killed and all the NRA/GOP does is drink their blood like Dracula.

So, yeah...U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

 

[mardocOz]

Fair points, all. I think there are ways to work around a lot of these issues, though.

Scenery could change up by not limiting it specifically to London, but to other parts of the UK as well. Rampaging over the Yorkshire Moors or the mountainous regions of Wales/Scotland, the idyllic countryside of south-west England, there's plenty to see. Similar to how they did it in San Andreas you wouldn't be limited to just Los Santos necessarily.

Guns? Well sure, getting your hand on a gun is not as easy in the UK or Australia as the second-amendment loving US of A but that's not to say they don't exist. It's entirely possible for criminals to be armed, and since it would be such a rare occurence for a nutter to be running around with military grade hardware a la GTA then it actually makes sense for the police to respond as they do in the games (shoot first, ask questions later etc). Of course you'd need to work around the fact that your average British bobby isn't armed, but meh... who cares for accuracy anyway? (And again, there are armed police in the UK, just not all of them).

Rockstar's game design does seem to follow certain formulae, true. I'm not going to get my hopes up for a non-American GTA, as long as it's fun to play they could send it back to Liberty City or Los Santos again. My only concern, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is that by releasing the same (or very similar) settings over and over again it may start to get stale. There's only so many "America! Fuck yeah!" jokes that can be made. A different setting is one way for them to mix it up a bit and keep the series fresh. Not the only way, for sure, but it's definitely one.

Ultimately though it's all subjective, and I think most of us will be happy as long as the game is fun to play regardless of the setting.

 

[Rangaman]

For the satire in GTA to work the setting and culture need to feel familiar for the audience, which rules out any games set outside of the US.

Why?

Are you suggesting that an American audience is not familiar enough with the stereotypical portrayal of other western nations to find entertainment?

Yes. It's an international audience, rather than American, but American culture is the most dominant.

If you think about all of the various radio stations in the previous games, the television shows, and the pop culture references, there isn't enough familiarity with other cultures to provide that level of satire. There is zero chance of a GTA game set entirely outside of the USA. The best you could hope for is some kind of border location with Mexican, Canadian or even Cuban locations.

I don't know if you've ever been to Australia and England, but there's easily enough to satirize in those two countries. Xenophobia, bogans, cockneys, pretentiousness, the clash between the liberal city-center dwellers and the conservative country folk...actually, it's not that different from the US.

For the record, London was actually a previous setting and Rockstar North is still based in Scotland, so you never know.

 

[Rangaman]

I think the issue with setting GTA outside of the USA is that most, Western, countries aren't as lax with their gun laws.

It would be kind of unheard of to see someone in Australia shooting up civilians in the streets, unless you set it back in the 80s or something and even then...

The US of A is kind of, uh...great(?)...when it comes to violence.
I mean, this country FEEDS of it.

We couldn't even pass any kind of background check laws, even when 90+ of the population wants it, because the NRA and their bitches in DC ain't got the stones to do it.
Shit, we've had little kids being killed and all the NRA/GOP does is drink their blood like Dracula.

So, yeah...U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

It's still entirely possible to obtain firearms in Australia, the United Kingdom, etc. Not as easily as in the US, true, but not impossible either.

Massacres have occurred more recently as well. The Port Arthur Massacre is the reason we have gun laws nowadays.

 

[Tayh]

In the capital city of Denmark: Copenhagen, of course.

 

[WolfThomas]

I think the issue with setting GTA outside of the USA is that most, Western, countries aren't as lax with their gun laws.

It would be kind of unheard of to see someone in Australia shooting up civilians in the streets, unless you set it back in the 80s or something and even then...

The US of A is kind of, uh...great(?)...when it comes to violence.
I mean, this country FEEDS of it.

We couldn't even pass any kind of background check laws, even when 90+ of the population wants it, because the NRA and their bitches in DC ain't got the stones to do it.
Shit, we've had little kids being killed and all the NRA/GOP does is drink their blood like Dracula.

So, yeah...U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

Technically GTA 4 portrayed a city with strict gun laws. You couldn't walk into an Ammunation, you had to buy guns off blackmarket dealers in warehouses or out of the trunk of cars. It's why you lose your guns if you are caught by the police.

GTA V has some narrative dissonance in that you had to steal guns for one heist (the first one) because you couldn't be using store bought guns, but then let you commit every other crime with store bought guns.

Australia has conservative 250,000 semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and pump action shotgun that were never surrendered. Some analysts think it is actually in the low millions (calculating from sales and imports). Then there's guns that were stolen, went missing from the police (a disturbingly high number), are imported illegal (5% of all shipping containers are searched) or made in the backyard.

Plenty of criminal have guns in Australia. Just not ordinary people. Heck Mick Gatto (supsected organised crime figure to those from out of Australia) just walked with a slap on the wrist from being caught with an illegal handgun.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Another country. Australia and England are pretty tough on guns, so maybe not an ideal setting. Mexico would be cool. Run drugs across the border for the Cartels. You could even have a Trump parody promising to build a 100 foot tall electrified laser fence or something. Perhaps somewhere tropical, like Cuba or Haiti (they did have a gang war in Vice City, perhaps an offshoot?). Or change things up, and go to Alaska. Imagine the multiplayer snowball fights.