One of the best elements of both Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was the time in which they were set and the themes they were able to take advantage of as a result. From Tommy Vercetti’s adventure through the Miami-inspired streets to CJ’s homecoming to the sunny West Coast in a fictional ’90s city, the pair of PlayStation 2 titles are rightfully praised for the stories and the atmosphere they can create. With Grand Theft Auto 6 returning players to the modern day, the next entry in the series should once again revert to a period piece format.
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Period Pieces Provoke Great World-Building
One of the defining factors of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is the architecture and overall vibe of the town it presents. Barreling through downtown Vice City with Kim Wilde echoing from a near-destroyed Sabre muscle car is part of the game’s unrelenting charm, as this act fits perfectly with the way the city looks from all angles. Seeing Vice City in the modern day during sunlight hours would be like going to a nightclub the morning after a great party. It’s a great setting, not just because of its geography, but because of the people that inhabit it, the cars they drive, and the music they listen to.
Los Santos presented in Grand Theft Auto 5 suffered from a similar problem. It’s the very same playground as the one brought to players in 2004, but had to remold itself to fit 2013, and as such lost so much of the atmosphere that made Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas fun to play and exist in. If Red Dead Redemption 3 took place in New Austin in 2022, it would lose everything that made it great as the tone, world-building, characters, and story were all so tightly connected to the late-19th century. The same is true of Grand Theft Auto. While future titles would do well to craft entirely new settings, ensuring they don’t take place in modern day would be an exciting proposition.
Mafia Makes Use of The Past and GTA Could Too
Though Grand Theft Auto has never deviated further past the 1980s for its stories, Mafia: Definitive Edition shows that there is so much presentation value and narrative potential in the past. Its prohibition era Lost Heaven is dripping with style, and the gameplay is changed drastically by what was available to people at the time. Cars are slower meaning chases are more tense rather than fast and flashy, and weapons are less efficient and plentiful, making each kill during the main campaign feel more meaningful. There is less emphasis on all-out carnage in Hangar 13’s 2020 title, which perhaps makes it more comparable to Red Dead Redemption than Grand Theft Auto.
The existence of Red Dead Redemption prevents Grand Theft Auto from venturing too far into the past of the United States, but it also shows that immersing players in a certain time can provoke more memorable experiences. Arthur Morgan’s slow, begrudging journey towards the light is significantly more engaging than the one undertaken by GTA 5’s trio of undesirables, and even time away from the story feels more rewarding. The 1899 setting does so well to achieve this and, like Mafia: Definitive Edition in 2020, it serves to make the end product all the more atmospherically satisfying.
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Grand Theft Auto Excels at Social Commentary
Social commentary is a critical element of Grand Theft Auto, as without it the story each game presents would be far less interesting and half as controversial. Placing a mirror in front of society and parodying the culture in which each game is set is the reason why Grand Theft Auto is more revered than other open-world games, but with a modern-day setting the social commentary quickly fades into obscurity. GTA 5 is still going strong 9 years after its PS3 and Xbox 360 release, but plenty of the things it pokes fun of simply don’t exist anymore and the comedy that litters the story is no longer relevant.
Taking a future Grand Theft Auto game to the swinging ’60s or the turn of the 21st century would ensure that the unapologetic humor and stark social commentary makes sense and can’t be rendered irrelevant after just a few short years. Such decades are long gone, and so the game’s tone will be compromised as it’s highly unlikely that anyone’s views on that time will change. Should a future Grand Theft Auto title be a period piece, it will stand the test of time because of its willingness to submerge itself in the past, not trying to take advantage of current trends.
If Rockstar Games was to release new entries with more regularity this may not be an issue, but Grand Theft Auto 6 is still a while away. Grand Theft Auto only seems to be getting bigger in both scale and longevity, so the ever-changing state of modern day is moving too fast for Grand Theft Auto to truly capture in one game. A period piece is where the franchise flourishes, and it should absolutely return to the formula, sooner rather than later
Grand Theft Auto 6 is in development.
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