GTA VI has not disappointed expectations Some curiosities while waiting for the release of one of the most celebrated video games of all time

From November 19, Grand Theft Auto VI will be available, the highly anticipated new installment in the celebrated GTA saga – one of the best-selling and most acclaimed video games of all time. Recently, Rockstar Games – the company behind the game – unveiled, in collaboration with Netflix, a long preview video of Grand Theft Auto VI (later made available on YouTube as well), showing numerous gameplay sequences.

Over the years, Rockstar Games has made the GTA universe increasingly larger and more complex, adding more possibilities, details, and freedom for players with each new installment. This is partly why anticipation for GTA VI was extremely high – it's no coincidence that the Guardian, one of the world's most important newspapers, covered the game's presentation event with a live blog, a format generally reserved for major breaking news events. According to experts and fans, the quality of GTA VI's graphics is indeed top-notch, and the same goes for the care put into scene lighting, camera movements, and character performances.

What to expect from GTA VI

The protagonists of Grand Theft Auto VI are Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos: the former is a drug trafficker and dealer, while the latter has just been released from prison. The two have a relationship «in the style of Bonnie and Clyde», writes Dazed, referring to the famous pair of American criminals from the 1930s who over time became a pop culture icon.

At certain points in the game, players can choose to play as either Jason or Lucia; alternatively, they can move around solo, with the option of having their partner join them at any time. In GTA VI, the setting once again is Vice City – the fictional version of Miami – and the state of Leonida (i.e., the equivalent of Florida in the United States).

To recreate a believable version of Florida and Miami, the GTA VI development team consulted various figures, including former criminals and arms traffickers. In addition, some of the many people who worked on the game's development for over ten years actually relocated to Miami, with the goal of getting to know the city more deeply and recreating its atmosphere, dynamics, and details in the game.

The story of GTA, from the beginning

The first Grand Theft Auto arrived in 1997, introducing a new formula based on exploring large cities, shootouts, and criminal activities. With Grand Theft Auto III, released in 2001, the series took a major step forward: the universe was made even vaster, and players were given greater freedom of movement, which helped establish the GTA saga as a benchmark for so-called "open world" action video games. Since then, Grand Theft Auto has built its identity on alternating crime-driven action sequences with more lighthearted activities, leaving players free to decide when to follow the story's pace and when to explore the vast setting instead.

Behind the most profitable video game franchise of all time are two English brothers, Sam and Dan Houser, who grew up in London and were passionate about crime cinema from a young age. In 1990, Sam, just nineteen years old, began working in a low-level role at BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group), at the time one of the largest record labels in the world, which in those years had also started investing in the video game sector, creating an internal division dedicated to this growing field.

Within six years, Sam ended up running this same team and came across the prototype of Grand Theft Auto, developed by a small studio based in Dundee, Scotland, launching the first installment of the saga onto the market. In 1998, the American group Take-Two Interactive acquired BMG's video game division, and Sam moved to New York, where he founded the subsidiary company Rockstar Games together with his brother Dan and two other colleagues, continuing to lead the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

With the series' subsequent installments, Rockstar Games racked up one success after another, culminating in GTA V: released in 2013, the game grossed $800 million in 24 hours and surpassed one billion in just three days, setting the industry's all-time sales record and going on to sell over 220 million copies; precisely because of this, expectations for GTA VI were extremely high, but according to fans and industry insiders themselves, they appear not to have been disappointed in any way – despite a long and troubled development process, marked by delays and leaks.