palms_and_potholes

People have spent years turning a trailer into a personal design document. One person expects every building to open. Another expects a full life simulator. Another expects GTA IV physics, Red Dead 2 writing, FiveM roleplay, Fortnite-scale updates, perfect 60 fps and a map that covers half a state without empty roads. Rockstar created the silence, but fans filled it with a game that cannot exist. GTA 6 can be excellent and still disappoint millions of imaginary feature lists. The healthiest expectation is not low. It is specific: judge what the game actually tries to be.

Rockstar can sell this game on two trailers, a release date and the words Vice City. That is impressive. It is also exactly why nobody should pretend a preorder is a rational evaluation of the product. We still have not seen a normal uninterrupted mission, the performance modes, the actual density of the world, or how aggressive the Online monetization will be. The game may be incredible. I expect it to be incredible. That is not the same thing as having evidence. The preorder bonus is not the issue. The issue is people treating a receipt like membership in the real fan club. I am buying it at launch. I am just not going to call clicking buy months early a personality trait.

My version of GTA 6 has small dense neighborhoods, enterable buildings and cops who remember my car. My brother wants a giant state so he can drive for 25 minutes while listening to the radio. One friend wants GTA IV car weight. Another says GTA IV drove like every trunk had a washing machine loose inside it. The guy from our party who skips every cutscene has VERY strong opinions about Lucia and Jason for some reason. Then there's Nico, who only wants to push NPCs into pools. Honestly Nico might be the only normal one. No game can win this. If the map is dense people call it small. If it is huge, the seventh gas station has the same locked door and I start whining. If the story gets serious, people miss the dumb jokes. If it gets silly, people say Rockstar lost its teeth. So I hope they pick a personality and commit to it. Make some of us mad. A game designed by averaging every GTA fan together would be absolute paste. Still better have good car damage though. My reasonable speech ends there.