Following a recent Bloomberg report that discusses Rockstar removing some potentially offensive content from GTA 6 and introducing a new female protagonist, accusations of this game going woke are already flying.
- GTA 6 Is Reportedly Cleaning Up Its Act
- GTA 6’s Female Protagonist Won’t Actually Be The Series’ First
GTA 6 Will Neither Go Woke, Nor Broke When It Arrives
After hearing the news, Florida Republican Congressional candidate Lavern Spicer chimed in yesterday:
GTA 6 is going to go woke.
They’ll also go broke.
— Lavern Spicer 🇺🇸 (@lavern_spicer) July 27, 2022
What exactly is “woke” about what the Bloomberg report describes? We have the following:
- In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, Rockstar decided not to proceed with the GTA Online mode Cops n’ Crooks.
- Rockstar removed transphobic jokes from GTA 5’s recent console re-release.
-  In contrast to previous games, developers are also being cautious not to “punch down” by making jokes about marginalized groups.
- Rockstar is giving GTA 6 a female, Latina protagonist, the series’ first woman lead ever, though it appears she may have a playable male counterpart in a “Bonnie and Clyde” type story.
Once again, we find ourselves trying to parse the bizarre conservative definition of the term “woke,” which in this instance includes removing making anti-transgender or potentially racist jokes and allowing players to play as a woman for the first time in the 20-year history of the series. Okay, that’s fine.
But past that, I think you haven’t been paying much attention to the GTA series as a whole because the entire premise of the world that exists in these games is that America is a corrupt, capitalist hellhole where the American Dream only exists if you lie, cheat, and steal your way to the top. GTA as a series has allowed players to slaughter cops by the truckload since the GTA 3 days, so is it going to be used as a conservative talking point now that GTA 6 is “anti-cop” if that tradition continues?
You can twist anything to fit your story, and suddenly the police murder simulator set inside a decayed parody of America is woke because…you can play as a woman and they won’t make transphobic jokes. Okay.
In terms of “going broke”? At this point, there is literally nothing Rockstar could do to make GTA 6 anything less than a smash hit. GTA 5 has sold 165 million copies, far exceeding any traditionally priced game, with the closest comparable being perhaps Mario Kart 8, as that wasn’t a low-cost title like Minecraft or Tetris, nor an always-bundled game like Wii Sports or Super Mario Bros.
The point is, even if lightning does not strike twice, GTA will sell at least 50 million copies. 75 million? And that’s conservative, because based on the previous game’s performance, 100 million copies seems like practically a guarantee. You could have GTA 6 star Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and there aren’t enough offended conservatives in the world to make it anything less than a smash hit.
You will hear this “woke” narrative more and more as new information about GTA 6 and its new characters, setting, and storyline becomes available. And yet, I guarantee you that, aside from fewer lame jokes, very little will change about the game itself, and it will still destroy everything in its path when it does arrive.
