GTAVI: An exclusive deep dive into the video game of the decade | Dazed Players step into the shoes of Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos – an ex-military drug runner and a fighter fresh out of prison, respectively – and can choose to either play as a couple, or go off and cause chaos independently. While GTA satirised modern life with wacky characters, high-octane car chases and explosive gunfights, RDR2 was hailed as one of the most realistic and immersive games to date, with a slower, more emotional tone suited to its storyline. GTAVI promises something in between the two. The open-world game is set in the same fictionalised US that serves as the backdrop for the rest of the series, with all the weapons and supercars you'd expect, but the world is more grounded and reactive than before – gone are the days when you could traverse the city like a god. This marks the first time that a GTA game has featured a playable couple in the lead role, which makes for some unique scenarios: on the way to a job, for example, players can cruise along the highway as Jason, or swap to Lucia in the passenger seat to scroll on the in-game phone. GTAVI marks the return, and expansion, of these interactive systems that alter the protagonists' bodies. Food affects Jason and Lucia's weight, while exercising visibly builds and tones their muscles. And, if you end up spending a long time away from your bed, on the run from police or on a multi-day bender, their features are going to pay the price for that as well. The effect is a bit like The Picture of Dorian Gray – only, instead of your soul being recorded on a spooky painting in the attic, your habits and sins are written on to the faces and bodies of the game's avatars. This kind of interactivity is unique to video games, shaping the virtual world and the player's responses to it in turn. Between visual feedback mechanisms, deep relationship mechanics and the heightened realism of the world they inhabit, people might even think twice about going on the arcade-style rampages of GTA games gone by, once they land in Leonida. This brings us back to the background NPCs. Young and old, tall or short, tattooed, pierced or modified with plastic surgery, wearing throwback Hawaiian shirts, sharp suits, luxury fashion or muddy combat gear, the bodies and clothes of the virtual masses are also far more varied than in previous games, and more tailored to their local environments, from Vice City's Little Cuba to the wilderness of Mount Kalaga national park. To pull off the technical and cultural feats required to build a world of the scale, depth and interactivity of GTAVI, the Rockstar team has more than doubled in size since the release of Red Dead Redemption 2. It has offices around the world, with one branch in LA dedicated almost solely to the world of in-game pedestrians (NPCs).
