‘We Have To Be Careful’ — Rockstar on GTA 6’s Approach to Satire
Thirteen years is a long time. It can feel especially long when you’re developing a game in a series that loves nothing more than to satirize the times we live in. GTA 6 has the challenge, then, of not feeling out of touch with the world its trying to find the funny side of.
It’s something that Rob Nelson, co-studio head of Rockstar North is astutely aware. “That’s a question a lot of people ask: how do you deal with satire in today’s world?” he told IGN on an exclusive visit to the developer’s Scottish office.
“I think there’s always stuff to satirize. As long as humans are humans, other humans will figure out ways to satirize what we do. For us, because we work on such a long development cycle, we have to not jump on stuff and instead choose our angle of approach carefully and decide what things are going to be a bit more timeless. We’re not a TV show coming out every week or every month. We have to be careful that what we’re choosing to satirize is not going to feel dated in a weird way. I think those broader things are OK to satirize, but very specific political issues or memes will date fast. Even the way our characters speak we think about it a lot, so that they're not using extremely contemporary slang. Even though our characters are a certain age, they need to feel somewhat timeless.”