The trailer forGTA 6dropped earlier this week, and one of the lines I read over and over again is that “it looks like a photograph”. I can only assume these people have never seen a photograph in their lives, because no, it doesn’t. Much like The Last of Us Part 1remaster, it looks like a very impressive video game that is still, nonetheless, a video game. BothRockstarandNaughty Doghave a habit of polishing their best work to sell minor improvements back to us, but after GTA 6 we will eventually get GTA 7. And what does that look like?
I’m not just getting ahead of myself here. ARockstar crime love story, areturn to Vice City, and seeing theGTAworld througha female character’s eyesall sound compelling. As someone who vastly prefersRed Dead Redemption 2andGTA 4toGTA 5, I’m optimistic about GTA 6 being less reckless than 5’s Los Santos carnage and having the refined violence of the games either side of it.
But still, I find myself looking ahead to GTA 7, and it’s mainly this photograph thing. GTA 6 does not look like a photograph, and I’m not sure any video game ever will. I’m not sure they should either, but I grant that’s opinion. But more to the point, maybe they can’t.
The only ‘animated’ movie that comes close to looking like real life (like a photograph) isAvatar: The Way of Water, and that’s because it mostlyisreal life. It doesn’t qualify for Best Animated at the Academy Awards, and relies on wrapping CGI around mocap. Sure, video games use mocap too, but there are a thousand more variables with a video game where the player gets to control things, and a movie where the director chooses which take, which angle, and gets to perfect each frame before we see it - a far cry from the 360 camera and total freedom video games offer.
I have no doubt GTA 6 will be a technical leap, even from Red Dead Redemption 2, which I consider to be the most technically proficient game on the market right now, even five years after its launch. I havea lot of faith in Rockstar’s RAGE. In typical GTA fashion, Rockstar showed off this technical push with twerk jiggle physics. I just wonder where the leap goes.
There were five years between GTA 4 and GTA 5, and the graphical improvement across both is incredible. GTA 5 looks a generation removed from GTA 4. Then there were five years between GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, and RDR2 looks kinda better. It’s a much smaller leap. There are vistas in RDR2 unlike anything GTA 5 is capable of, but mostly they’re in the same ballpark. Then another five years later (with the eventual release date making for seven years) GTA 6 looks the same as RDR2.
Don’t get me wrong, GTA is a harder game to make. With its densely populated urban areas and much slicker speed than Red Dead’s travails in the lonely wilderness, giving RDR2 graphics in a GTA story is massively impressive. Rockstar is the studio to watch for technical achievement. But it’s not like looking at a photograph, and GTA 7 won’t be either.
Is this the peak of video game visuals? Not just as good as they can currently look, but as good as they may ever look? It wouldn’t bother me at all of it was - this is not to demand GTA 6 (or the hypothetical GTA 7) improve its visuals, but to speculate on what happens next with an audienceso used to looking for photorealismthat to label something “like a photograph” as a shorthand for having good graphics, even when the statement itself is not true.
Even with the extended development costs and timeframes, the leaps video games are making are getting smaller and smaller. Maybe even because of these development cycles - we’ve already taken our giant leaps, now the question is not looking better but hitting that level faster and cheaper. GTA 6 was always going to be a phenomenon. It remains to be seen if GTA 7 can do the same if gaming’s visuals are about to hit a brick wall.
