Game Review – Grand Theft Auto VI
Developer: Rockstar Games
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Year: 2025
It’s been eleven years since GTA V. Eleven years of waiting. Eleven years of Rockstar milking Online mode while we begged for a new single-player experience. And now it’s here and. Yeah. It was worth the wait.
Grand Theft Auto VI takes place in Leonida — a fictionalized Florida that includes Vice City and the surrounding swamplands, suburbs, and rural areas. If GTA V‘s Los Santos was Rockstar’s love letter to Los Angeles, Leonida is their love letter to the beautiful disaster that is the American Southeast.
You play as two characters: Lucia and Jason. A couple. A Bonnie and Clyde thing. The dual protagonist system from V is streamlined here — you can switch between them freely but they’re usually together, working as a team. The relationship between them is the emotional core of the game in a way that GTA hasn’t really attempted before.
Lucia is. Okay look. Lucia is maybe the best protagonist Rockstar has ever created. She’s smart and tough and vulnerable and funny and tragic. Her backstory — which unfolds through flashbacks and conversations — gives the game a weight that past GTAs haven’t had. This isn’t just a crime sandbox. It’s a story about two people trying to escape the systems that made them.
The world itself is staggering. I’ve played for forty hours and I keep discovering new areas. The attention to detail is. I mean. It’s Rockstar. They modeled the way humidity affects car windshields. They programmed wildlife patterns in the swamps. There’s a social media parody that runs in-game and the posts change based on what’s happening in the story. It’s obsessive and insane and I love it.
Gameplay refinements. Combat feels better. Driving feels better. The wanted system is more dynamic — cops actually investigate now instead of magically knowing where you are. The mission variety is impressive; there’s heists and chases and stealth and relationship stuff and one mission that’s just. Doing laundry. It works somehow.
The satire is sharper than GTA V. Less “both sides are dumb” nihilism and more targeted commentary. There’s a tech billionaire character who’s clearly a composite of real people and his missions are genuinely funny in ways GTA hasn’t been in a while.
My issues. Performance is spotty even on next-gen consoles. There are bugs — nothing game-breaking but noticeable. The online component isn’t live yet so I can’t speak to that. And there’s one storyline in Act 2 that I thought went in the wrong direction.
But none of that matters much when you’re driving a stolen convertible through a thunderstorm while Lucia and Jason argue about their future and synthwave plays on the radio and you realize you’ve been playing for six hours and forgot to eat dinner.
Rockstar made us wait eleven years. They delivered.
My rating: ★★★★★
