Tag: Rockstar games

10 Big Improvements GTA 6 Needs to Reinvigorate the Franchise

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After almost a decade of playing Grand Theft Auto 5 and its many re-releases, the hype for the next entry is at a fever pitch. When GTA VI releases the game will likely become one of the biggest entertainment launches in history, just like previous entries. However, if Rockstar intends to impress gamers once again, they’ll need to make these 10 big improvements to avoid letting down gamers the same way that recent triple-A titles have.

Focus the Narrative Again

Image Source: Rockstar Games

Grand Theft Auto 5 broke new ground for the series by crafting a narrative featuring the three playable characters; Micheal, Trevor, and Franklin. Each character felt distinct and interesting in their way. However, the story is told from three perspectives making the game’s overall themes seem convoluted to a certain extent.

In Red Dead Redemption 2 it’s arguably easier to understand the motivations of Arthur Morgan along with the direction that the writers took the story. Meanwhile, many missions and plot points in GTA 5 felt like simple excuses for major set pieces. Hopefully Rockstar can give players the same the level of immersion and connection that many players felt with Arthur Morgan.

Improve the Gunplay

Image Source: Rockstar Games

Rockstar is the same company that developed and published Max Payne 3 which has some of the smoothest gunplay in any third-person shooter even after 10 years of being on the market. So for this reason, it’s baffling that most Rockstar titles are objectively less fun to play in comparison to other shooters.

There are two possible explanations for this strange phenomenon. One reason may be that Rockstar values realism and immersion above anything else and all of their playable characters have to move in realistic ways unlike the common protagonist of a Call of Duty game. Another reason is that Rockstar wants to compensate for their realistic movement by giving casual players the chance to effectively take out enemies with ease. With the next entry it would be nice to experience smoother gunplay that challenges the player.

Give Meaning to Money

Image Source: Rockstar Games

The pursuit of money is something that’s a driving force for the narratives of most GTA games. For this reason, it’s somewhat ironic that halfway through most titles money becomes irrelevant for most players. Whether a player steals the cars they want or buys all the weapons they need, money eventually becomes a random number in the top right of the corner for most players. The next entry has the chance to make the player truly value every dollar they earn through illicit means.

Maybe have a permanent health upgrade associated with money or have a system in place that makes it imperative that you learn how to manage your money for the overall benefit of your character. Of course, players shouldn’t have to become accountants to succeed at the game, but it would be interesting to see if Rockstar can shake things up.

Increase Player Interaction

Image Source: Rockstar Games

A minor and major feature of Red Dead Redemption 2 was the dialogue system that let players talk to every NPC in the game. Of course, players couldn’t have Mass Effect-style conversations with every NPC but players got the chance to express themselves and learn more about the characters of RDR 2. If Rockstar could build off of this system they have the opportunity to potentially make GTA 6 one of the most immersive games ever released. Not only that but Rockstar could also go the extra mile and allow players to enter even more buildings within whatever city they decide to visit in the next release.

Make GTA: Online Accessible

Image Source: Rockstar Games

Have you tried playing Grand Theft Auto: Online in 2023? Whether new or old, players are bombarded by tons of content that’s either confusing to navigate to or requires tons of grinding just to experience. And while having tons of content updates is what keeps GTA: Online around, Rockstar can do a better job of updating certain systems within the game.

For example, most players are aggressively pushed to buy microtransactions and the game preys on players with limited time who want to experience the latest updates. This is a far cry from the days of the multiplayer of Grand Theft Auto 4 where players simply had the entirety of Liberty City at their fingertips.

Now players have to treat the online portion as a second job to feel a sense of satisfaction. Of course, Rockstar will probably continue down this path due to its success but hopefully, the next iteration of GTA: Online can focus on providing a fun experience instead of an overly grindy one.

Post-Launch Expansions

Image Source: Rockstar Games

Do you realize the last time we got an expansion was GTA IV, a year after its release? GTA V didn’t get a single expansion. If you want to experience any kind of new GTA content, you have to play GTA Online, and that means dealing with the game’s exhausting grind.

No, what we need is something akin to Red Dead Redemption’s Undead Nightmare and GTA IV: The Lost and Damned. It’d be a great opportunity to explore characters further, new content, another campaign, and add some longevity to the main game overall. Not every fan wants to play GTA Online, you know? And go wild with the content, too, like the Undead Nightmare expansion did with zombies!

Customizable Player Houses

Image Source: Rockstar Games

At some point in Grand Theft Auto, you have so much money you don’t even know what to do with it. With millions in the bank, you’ll have plenty for stocking up on ammo, cars, and player housing. Aside from weapons and vehicles, what’s the point of buying other houses? It’s nothing more than a money sink.

This can be easily rectified in GTA VI if we could furnish our house or, at the very least, be able to purchase different themes. Customization is a tad basic in GTA V, so it’d be a breath of fresh air if we could alter more than just our character and car.

More Immersive NPC AI

Image Source: Rockstar Games

While the NPCs in Starfield don’t react to you letting off a few rounds in town, the ones in GTA V certainly do. They might take off in fear or even pull out a gun themselves, but let’s be honest, a lot of the time NPCs can be downright dumb. Their driving is a particular blind spot, especially the cops, which you can so easily exploit. What GTA VI needs are more reactive NPCs and variation.

For example, why not implement citizen’s arrest? If you’re terrorizing a bunch of folks, maybe someone decides to take matters into their own hands and you get busted. I’d also like to see police use more aggressive driving techniques, too. Watching cops ramp the back in an effort to throw me off balance is a good start, but it’s still easy to outrun and outmaneuver the police with even basic driving skills.

Local Multiplayer

Image Source: Rockstar Games

Whatever happened to local multiplayer? It was such a fun feature in GTA: San Andreas, but was never revisited again. It wouldn’t even have to be split-screen or necessarily fleshed out. I just want to be able to wreak havoc on people with a buddy without resorting to GTA Online or taking turns. Maybe throw in a few side missions that are split-screen only. Please, Rockstar?

Bring Back Turf War Mechanics

Image Source: Rockstar Games

Speaking of San Andreas, one of the best features that entry had was turf warfare. If you drove around town, you’ll quickly notice there are multiple roving gangs, denoted by their matching colors. On your map, you could see which gang owned which sections and, if you were feeling bold, you could overthrow them with your own gang. It was an awesome mechanic that wasn’t just fun, but it played into the whole theme of San Andreas.

We could seriously use something similar in GTA VI. It wouldn’t have to be gangs specifically—let that be unique to San Andreas. However, there’s no doubt we’re doing illegal stuff in the next installment, so why not bring that feature back in a different light? Perhaps you’re expanding a criminal organization and, in an effort to give a purpose, maybe certain missions and side missions are only available once you’ve seized enough land.

Can you think of anymore improvements for GTA 6? Tell us down below!

About the author

Brady Klinger-Meyers

Brady is a Freelance Writer at Twinfinite. Though he’s been at the site for only a year, Brady has been covering video games, and the industry itself, for the past three years. He focuses on new releases, Diablo 4, Roblox, and every RPG he can get his hands on. When Brady isn’t focused on gaming, he’s toiling away on another short story.

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Brady Klinger-Meyers

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November 8, 2023
GTA VI Patent Hints At Rockstar’s Most Immersive Game Yet

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A recently uncovered Rockstar Games patent suggests the developer could be using new technology to make NPCs in its games more immersive, particularly when it comes to the highly anticipated action-adventure crime sim GTA VI.

Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading

As spotted by Reddit user Tobbelobben30 (via Eurogamer), former Rockstar Games lead AI and gameplay programmer Tobias Kleanthous issued a patent in April called “System And Method For Virtual Character Locomotion.” The 11-page document, as Kleanthous described on LinkedIn, was “architected and implemented for games” at the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption studio. According to the paper’s abstract, the patent houses “a system and method for controlling the animation and movement of in-game objects.” In layperson’s terms, Kleanthous’ tech should make characters way more life-like. Tobbelobben30 detailed the patent’s contents in their Reddit post:

“Based on this patent, it seems like they’re using a clever system. They’ve built a library of small building blocks for character movements. These blocks can be combined in various ways to create a wide range of animations. For instance, think about a character in the game walking in the rain, feeling tired, or getting injured. Instead of designing separate animations for each of these situations, they use these building blocks to put together the character’s movements naturally. This means GTA 6 can have more diverse and lifelike animations. So, when you play GTA 6, you’ll see characters moving in ways that match the weather, their energy level, and their injuries. This makes the game feel more immersive. It’s like having characters that can adapt to different situations, making the game world feel more real and thrilling.”

“Immersive” can so often be an empty marketing buzzword thrown around ahead of game releases, but when it comes to this patent, the adjective couldn’t be more apt. Based on the tech described, Rockstar Games’ games—particularly GTA IV—should have characters with more dynamic animations, giving their worlds unparalleled realism. While Tobbelobben30 couldn’t verify if the system was used in Red Dead Redemption 2, they did say that the animations in Rockstar’s upcoming game will be “incredible.” (Kleanthous gave a talk during GDC 2021 about some similar tech used in the cowboy RPG.)

Various Reddit users have shared their reactions to this new locomotion patent. “Yeah it’s gonna be mind-blowing, even in the leaks the animations and physics looked insane,” ArkhamIsComing2020 said, referring to leaked development footage from September 2022. “Soo procedural animation? Niceeeee,” quipped ProceduralFish. “So basically if my arm gets hit with a bat I won’t be able to shoot as well? That’s kinda cool,” noted rustynutsbruh.

Kotaku reached out to Rockstar Games and Tobbelobben30 for comment.

We still don’t have a definitive release date for Grand Theft Auto VI, despite learning a lot about the game in recent months and years. A plethora of details have been made public, though, including the city in which the game will take place and the characters we’ll play as, all thanks to an 18-year-old hacker who used an Amazon Fire Stick to gain access to Rockstar Games from a hotel room.

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Levi Winslow

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October 30, 2023
Xbox Expected A Red Dead Redemption 2 Next-Gen Update, Wanted It On Game Pass

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Fans have long wanted Rockstar Games to release a next-gen patch or updated version of Red Dead Redemption 2 that would let the large game take advantage of the more powerful PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. That’s not happened yet, even though many have speculated about it. And new documents reveal that even Microsoft was expecting a next-gen RDR 2 to be out by now.

Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger

Released in 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a massive open-world western and a prequel to the original, critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption. When RDR 2 was first launched, there weren’t any next-gen machines out yet, so the game only came out on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. However, after Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online received fancy next-gen upgrades in 2022, many assumed RDR 2 would get similarly improved ports. Five years after its initial launch, it still hasn’t happened, leaving many fans disappointed and frustrated.

In newly leaked documents and emails, it turns out the folks at Xbox were, like so many Rockstar fans, also expecting a next-gen update. In a document showing Summer 2022 emails between Xbox boss Phil Spencer and other execs about acquiring more games for the company’s subscription service, Game Pass, we see a chart that is basically a wishlist of potential games to add. And listed in that chart is an entry for RDR 2’s “gen 9” release.

Screenshot: Kotaku

According to Microsoft, the company expected Rockstar Games to launch this “gen 9” version of RDR2 in FY23Q2 aka between October and November of 2022. In the doc, Microsoft suggests that Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive will want around $5 million a month to bring the next-gen version of RDR2 to Game Pass on day one. Further, it estimated around 10 million hours of the game would be played each month.

Based on the chart, Microsoft considered its chances to secure RDR2’s next-gen port as a day one Game Pass launch “very low” and listed its “Wow Factor” at medium. It also wasn’t sure if it would be able to get RDR2’s 2 PC port as part of the deal.

Of course, all of this planning and preparation was for nothing, as Red Dead Redemption 2 still doesn’t have a next-gen update or port. It’s a shame, as the game would look wonderful on the more powerful machines and would likely be able to run at 60fps, a big upgrade over the 30fps the game is currently locked to. Alas, it seems Rockstar is focused on the future and is busy developing the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which we know quite a bit about thanks to a separate, different leak from last year.

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Zack Zwiezen

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September 19, 2023
What If Max Payne, But Shooting Vampires In Slo-Mo Instead?

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When the original Max Payne was ported to consoles in late 2001, I couldn’t get a copy fast enough. I wasn’t a PC gamer at the time, and so for a while I could only enjoy Max Payne through the internet and TechTV at the time. I was transfixed by the graphics and luscious time-slowing bullet time gameplay on display. And when I finally played it on my original Xbox, it did not disappoint. Now, having played a select portion of El Paso, Elsewhere, a modern spin on this classic, third-person shooter, I am delighted to have experienced the classic vibes of the original Max Payne once more.

Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading

And, honestly, El Paso, Elsewhere is close to making them better than the original.

Expected to release in late 2023, El Paso, Elsewhere comes courtesy of Strange Scaffold, whose previous games have included Hypnospace Outlaw, a Strand-like (?), An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs (that’s the title, also an apt description), and most recently, Sunshine Shuffle, which got the dev in a little bit of trouble with Nintendo over jokes about child gambling (as one does). El Paso, Elsewhere also follows El Paso, Nightmare, a first-person shooter with similar retro vibes. But instead of aiming for head-mounted perspectives and center-positioned guns of yesteryear, El Paso, Elsewhere is a gritty shooter with the narrative and gameplay vibes of the first Max Payne, meaning you can slow down time to a crawl, upping your reaction time to increase your aim and take out multiple enemies at once But this time you’re going after friggin’ vampires instead of the mob. Though, six in one, really.

My preview of El Paso, Elsewhere went through the game’s first four chapters and, god damn it, I was sad when it stopped. Not only did it spark my nostalgic love of the first Max Payne, it did so with some genuinely great additions to this formula and a killer hip hop soundtrack that had me vibing the whole ride through.

In El Paso, Elsewhere, you’re taking on vampires and other hellish manifestations in a trippy, otherworldly motel. And in doing so, El Paso, Elsewhere, thus far, improves on one of the shortcomings of Max Payne and many other shooters that demand high bullet output but take place in otherwise realistic settings.

Game Design In Bullet Time

As fun as Max Payne is, one of the problems I always had was that, since your enemies are just mobsters and well-armed human beings, each gun battle is more or less the same—fun as though the loop is, there’s a lack of variety in terms of enemies. And on top of that, the amount of bullets you spit out tends to dilute the realistic premise to a certain degree.

Gif: Strange Scaffold / Kotaku

That’s not a problem for El Paso, Elsewhere. Since the bad guys are evil things that go bump in the night, I’m more than happy to suspend my disbelief as to how many bullets are required to take these things down. That does come at the cost of Max Payne’s fantasy of two-way bullet exchanges rippling through the slowmosphere, but the trade off is that it makes the gun battles far more interesting as enemy types are more varied thus far.

The aesthetic shift of paranormal hostiles immediately makes a difference. Simply having more interesting-looking enemies coming at you instead of Max Payne’s endless hordes of dudes-with-guns™ breaks up the monotony. But it’s not just Max Payne set in Party City during Halloween season here.

Gif: Strange Scaffold / Kotaku

By having foes with different kinds of attacks, you have to react differently, and thus make use of bullet time in more varied ways, be that dodging werewolves that leap at you, vampiric ghouls that burst out from behind crates, or from other unworldly begins that fire down large purple orbs at you, injecting a sense of verticality to the gameplay that isn’t always present in Max Payne. The pace of gameplay becomes more varied; I’m not just running from room to room trading fire with yet another nameless dude firing a gun at me.

Gif: Strange Scaffold / Kotaku

Sure, Max Payne’s task of taking down the mob by the dozens, and dozens, and dozens, (or in the case of Max Payne 3, dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens….) is fun, but it’s a breath of fresh air to have something new to engage with.

Also, I never felt too overpowered. In this preview, El Paso, Elsewhere managed to strike a nice balance between giving me the player the power to slow down time and unload tons of bullets while also holding me to account for what I’d over indulge in, be that bullets, time stopping power, or, yes, painkillers.

Gif: Strange Scaffold / Kotaku

I did find that I would run out of ammo and my bullet time meter if I wasn’t careful, meaning that while I had an edge over the hordes of evil creatures coming my way, I had to be strategic in how I used it. Do I use bullet time to be more accurate? Or do I use it to get a sense of my surroundings and determine just how bad the threat I’m facing is? I liked that delicate balance and it made the game feel alive beyond just the initial “oh, nostalgia! Let’s slow down time” feeling that I instantly felt. Managing my powers against ongoing threats was a rush I was eager to continue when the preview came to an end.

El Paso, Elsewhere is also very faithful to the narrative tone of Max Payne. As you use painkillers to heal yourself, the protagonist reflects on his diminishing sense of sanity as he continues to take drug after drug to keep pushing through. There is an ongoing narration from the protagonist that mirrors that of Max Payne’s own style of speaking and storytelling. And maybe because it’s about vampires, it doesn’t feel as campy as the original Max Payne somewhat feels in hindsight. And when you enter new areas, you’re hit with that delightful bass drum pulse and big title screen in bold white lettering ala Control.

Screenshot: Strange Scaffold / Kotaku

While some environments did have me running around a bit guessing as to where I supposed to go, the ride through this preview was genuine fun and I was quite bummed to hit the end of the preview.

And you know, I can talk all day about how I think the enemy variety mixes things up pleasantly, or how there seems to be a nice balance of resource management, but feeling like I don’t want to put the gamepad down? That’s a feeling I like in a game.

El Paso, Elsewhere is expected to launch later this year, 2023, on PC and Xbox.

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Claire Jackson

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June 11, 2023
GTA Online’s Next Big Update Will Finally Add A Long-Requested Feature

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Grand Theft Auto Online might be close to a decade old, but it’s still popular and getting big updates from developer Rockstar. In fact, its next big, free expansion is out later this month with a focus on aerial warfare and smuggling. But it’s also adding some nice quality-of-life changes that’ll make it easier to run around Los Santos.

Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading

Since its initial launch in October 2013, GTA Online has continued to be updated, expanded, and ported as millions of players keep returning to the game’s large open world to commit more crimes alongside (or against) other players and NPCs. At this point, GTA Online has been around so long it has had to leap across three different console generations to keep up with players and the ever-changing video game industry. It also keeps receiving updates every year, like the just announced June 13 update: San Andreas Mercenaries.

On Friday, Rockstar shared the first details about GTA Online’s next big expansion on the company’s official website. This time around players will be teaming up with vets and military pilots to take on Merryweather Security, a large PMC that has been in the game for years, but is now apparently expanding its operations and interfering with criminal operations. To combat the evil private security force, players will join a new mercs group known only as the Los Santos Angels and take on new jobs, including stealing data from server farms, launching raids against the PMC, and dropping bombs on valuable targets spread across the state.

According to Rockstar, this new update will expand the functionality of the aircraft hangar added in the Smuggler’s update back in 2017. That’s nice, as that piece of the game had long felt abandoned and old. The publisher is also promising changes to improve the already-existing Avenger, a large aircraft added in a previous update.

GTA Online’s next free update adds more quality-of-life changes

As has become the norm in recent updates, Rockstar isn’t just adding big new missions and business opportunities to GTA Online with June 13’s update. It’s also once again adding some long-requested features in its continued effort to make the game less of a hassle to play.

One big one is that players will finally be able to choose a new option for sprinting. Currently, players have to continually mash the X or A button to sprint in GTA Online. The faster you mash, the faster your character runs. It’s a neat idea but has long been considered annoying and possibly a barrier for some players who don’t have the dexterity to repeatedly and quickly mash buttons. Now, Rockstar is adding a “hold to sprint” option to the game, which is greatly appreciated.

Another nice quality-of-life change is that, after June 13, players will be able to replace all their destroyed vehicles via Mors Mutual Insurance at once. Another nice change that makes me wonder “Why wasn’t it like this to begin with?” Rockstar is also expanding the content creation tools by adding more props and snow options.

All told, it’s a solid update that isn’t the most exciting in the game’s history, but one that will be appreciated by folks who have spent the past decade tapping X for hundreds of hours just to run faster. Finally, we are free.

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Zack Zwiezen

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June 2, 2023
GTA Publisher’s Boss Not Seeing Any ‘Pushback’ On $70 Games

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During Take-Two Interactive’s recent earnings call with investors, CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked about other publishers selling AAA games at a discounted price shortly after launch. His company has been one of the many to start charging $70 for games, and at least according to him, he hasn’t seen any “pushback” on the new price point.

An Anime That Might Make You Put Your Minecraft Bed Next To Someone

On May 17, Take-Two Interactive—the publisher behind games like NBA 2K, GTA V, Borderlands, and BioShock—released its 2022 earnings report alongside a press release that seemed to hint at GTA VI-levels of success coming in the next year. As part of this process, the company also conducted a call with investors, who asked questions about Take-Two’s plans and past performance. It was here that one person brought up AAA game prices.

As spotted by VGC, during the call an analyst pointed out that some other, unnamed, publishers had started providing discounts on new AAA games “within days and weeks” of launch. The conversation around game prices has been bubbling for a while now as more publishers (including Take-Two Interactive) join the $70 game club, including Nintendo with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. But Zelnick claimed that consumers don’t really mind.

“We’re not seeing a pushback on frontline price,” Zelnick said. “What we’re seeing is consumers are seeking to limit their spending by going either to the stuff they really, really care about, blockbusters, or to value, and sometimes it could be both. And the good news is, we have a bunch of blockbusters and we have a wonderful catalog.”

The rise of $70 games

Basically, Zelnick believes that gamers are just buying fewer games and focusing on getting a couple of big, expensive $70 blockbuster titles or are willing to pick up older or smaller games that cost less. As the video game industry continues to struggle with layoffs and big games failing to sell well, it seems odd that Zelnick is fine with people being unable to afford more games and instead having to “limit their spending.” But I’m not a big rich CEO, so what do I know?

The reality is that while gamers are definitely vocally pushing back on $70 games—Zelnick should check out the comments on literally any story about these pricey titles—the reality is that publishers are going to move forward anyway. There’s too much money to be made, and as Tears of the Kingdom’s massive sale numbers have shown, a $70 game can sell like hotcakes if it’s good enough.

And as Microsoft, Sega, and other companies confirm future releases will cost $10 more than the old $60 price point, it seems clear that, pushback or not, we are truly in the era of $70 games.

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Zack Zwiezen

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May 19, 2023
10 Of The Best Ways Games Put Dirty Cheaters In Their Place

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Rockstar Games / KoingWolf

Back in 2015, Grand Theft Auto Online players found a way to spawn a car that is usually only available in Grand Theft Auto V’s single-player campaign. While some developers might simply patch the exploit out of the game, Rockstar decided that wasn’t enough, and that these cheaters deserved a punishment fitting of a Grand Theft Auto game. So instead of removing the car, the studio made it so that whenever a player attempted to get inside it, the vehicle would spontaneously explode, leaving the cheaters with a sudden “Wasted” game over and a jump scare for good measure.

Why was this car so significant? It was the Duke O’ Death, given only to players who upgraded from the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto V to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports. Rockstar eventually made the car available to all players in 2021, even in Grand Theft Auto Online, but at one point it was a prized possession that Rockstar went the extra mile to keep out of multiplayer.

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Kenneth Shepard

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May 2, 2023
Crash Landing

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Anshuman Kashyap is a senior concept artist at Rockstar.

Read more…

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Luke Plunkett

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March 7, 2023
RIP Tom Sizemore, 1961-2023

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Photo: Jim Smeal (Getty Images)

Veteran actor Tom Sizemore has died at the age of 61.

As Rolling Stone report, Sizemore was “found unconscious after suffering a brain aneurysm from a stroke at his Los Angeles home in the early morning of Feb. 19″. Having been kept alive on a ventilator for the past two weeks, his family made the decision over the weekend to “remove him from life support”, and he subsequently “passed away peacefully in his sleep”.

Sizemore, an actor you almost repeatedly saw described as “troubled” over the course of his career (he had long-standing drug problems and in 2003 spent seven months in prison on domestic abuse charges), was one of the most memorable stars of the 90s, owning every second he appeared on the screen in everything from Heat to True Romance to Saving Private Ryan.

For me, I can just never get his “very upset undercover agent” Point Break character out of my head. I will, even today, say the line “YOU THINK I LIKE THESE CLOTHES?!?!” every time I’m forced to put on a tie. Incredibly, the dude is only in this movie for like a minute. Point Break goes for two hours! And here I am saying it’s one of his most iconic performances. That’s what Tom Sizemore would do to a movie.

Tom Sizemore in Point Break

As you’d already know, this being a video game website, Sizemore was also famous for his role as Sonny Forelli in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

The game opens with Sizemore’s performance. He’s miles away from where the game’s actually set, you will barely see his face and yet he’s entrusted with setting up the whole damn thing, tone and all, and he absolutely nails it. Even when you can tell the parts where he’s just reading off a script with little idea of the context or what’s coming, it’s still good.

Sonny Forelli (GTA Vice City Definitive Edition) GTA Character Stories (GTA TRILOGY 2021)

His WHERE’S THE GODDAMNED MONEY phone calls are also excellent:

Gta Vice City – Sonny shouting at Tommy

Here’s some behind the scenes footage of the game’s voice cast—and man, what a cast—in which Sizemore makes a brief appearance:

GTA Vice City – Behind the Scenes (Voice Over Session)

In a statement following his passing, Grand Theft Auto developers Rockstar Games point out that Sizemore’s “effortless cool and phenomenal character work” had been “an inspiration to all of us” years before Vice City.

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Luke Plunkett

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March 5, 2023
The Best And Worst Part Of Every Grand Theft Auto

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Screenshot: Rockstar Games

Best: New Toys: It’s hard to choose one thing that I’d call the best part of Vice City, the GTA game that brought the series to Florida and the 80s, but if I have to (Editor’s note: You do.) then I’d pick the introduction of more vehicles to the sandbox. In Vice City, you could fly in planes and helicopters, drive scooters, golf carts, dirt bikes, various boats, and even pilot remote-controlled helicopters, too. All of this made Vice City a more fun playground to tinker with between missions.

Worst: Crappy Combat: The annoying, crappy combat. While it’s mostly unchanged from GTA III, it stands out in Vice City more because everything else—like the improved visuals, larger map and better cutscenes—is so much better this time around. And Vice City has a ton of combat in it, making it even harder to ignore just how clunky and bad it is.

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Zack Zwiezen

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February 22, 2023
GTA 6’s Leak Showed Us The Future, Now It’s Hard To Care About GTA Online

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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – 2002
Screenshot: Rockstar Games

Last year, footage of the next Grand Theft Auto—assumed to be GTA 6—leaked online. While Rockstar quickly tried to erase the videos from the internet and plug the holes in the ship, it was impossible to completely contain such a massive, unprecedented leak. So fans around the world got a very good look at the future of Grand Theft Auto. And now myself and others find it hard to go back to the aging GTA Online.

Late on September 19, 2022, 90 short videos of early gameplay of what would later be confirmed by Rockstar as the next GTA entry leaked online via a hacker. The footage revealed a lot about the next game in the massively popular open-world franchise, including that the series would be returning to Vice City, Florida, a fan-favorite location last seen in GTA: Vice City Stories, the prequel to the beloved PS2 classic, GTA: Vice City. It also gave us a good look at the new protagonists of this next criminal adventure and some of the missions we might experience when GTA 6 is eventually released. Fans even began mapping out the game’s virtual world using the leaks.

Rockstar undoubtedly hates the leak and likely wishes it could rewind time and prevent it from ever happening at all, but it did end up revitalizing the playerbase. For the first time in a long time, there was excitement and energy in the GTA community, which after years of GTA Online updates and poorly received remasters was in a pretty bad place prior to the leak. Even an early, unfinished or unpolished leak of GTA 6 was better than radio silence and glitchy remasters. People were pumped and hyped about the future of Grand Theft Auto in a way I hadn’t seen in years.

But then, once the leaks were scrubbed from the web and it became clear Rockstar wasn’t going to release any official teaser or trailer to capitalize on the moment, all I and other GTA fans could do was go back to GTA Online. And that’s harder to do now that I’ve seen the future.

Rockstar Games

The latest big and free expansion to GTA Online, Los Santos Drug Wars, was released late last year at a really bad time for me to play and cover it for the site. So I just…didn’t play it. For the first time ever in the history of GTA Online, I skipped a new update completely. I’ve still not played it. At first, I blamed my skipping of the latest update on bad timing and a busy schedule due to holidays and end-of-the-year content. But now, weeks removed from all that, with more free time to play stuff, I’ve still not fired up the new update. And I think it’s time to admit to myself that my growing burnout around GTA Online was increased greatly by that small taste of what’s to come. That look at the future of GTA in Florida ruined me.

I could go back and drive around the same highways and streets of Los Santos I’ve been cruising around since 2013. I could fire up the game and check out the newest business and missions connected to it. I could, sure. The thing is, I don’t know if I want to. I mean, eventually, I will play more GTA Online. I sort of have to as it’s part of my job here at Kotaku. Yet, if it wasn’t part of my career there’s a real chance that I might just never play GTA Online again.

To be clear: It’s not because GTA Online is worse today than it was a decade ago—it’s actually much better to play in 2023 than in 2013—but because getting a glimpse of a fresh new world has killed my desire to boot up the same old Los Santos after a decade of GTA Online and GTA V. I mean, just having new songs on the radio will be amazing. I love Queen’s “Radio Ga-Ga” but you can only hear it so many times in 10 years before you’re ready for new tunes, too.

At this point, I’m hoping the wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 and its sunny beaches, palm trees, and new characters isn’t too much longer, because I’m ready to leave Los Santos behind for a tropical vacation to Vice City.

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Zack Zwiezen

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January 13, 2023
No More Launchers For PC Games, Thank You!

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Image: Kerbal Space Program | Kotaku

The was once a golden age of PC gaming where you could open up Steam (or even just launch an executable yourself!), boot up a game and the next thing you would see would be the game itself. For many big (and small) releases those days are now long gone, replaced by an era of launchers that are, at best, a nuisance. Now, they’re even infecting indie projects like Kerbal Space Program.

If you want to play a Rockstar game on PC you need to install the company’s own launcher, which boots before you play the game you clicked to play, then makes you click another play button so you can finally play it. And that’s how it works when it’s working; when it’s not you simply can’t play any Rockstar games that you own, sorry!

Want to play a Total War game? You get a launcher. Paradox game? A launcher. Blizzard game? Battle.net. Fortnite? Epic Games Store. An EA game? Origin. Ubisoft? Hey, guess what, you gotta launch Ubisoft Connect, a launcher. Even Kalypso has a launcher.

Note that there are some bright spots here; Bethesda killed its own launcher off earlier this year and just let Steam handle everything, and some launchers have practical benefits like letting you manage your mods (Paradox) or jump straight into a save game (Creative Assembly).

While publishers have clear reasons to dump these things on us (from DRM to $$$), these launchers are wildly unpopular among players, in part because of the connectivity hassles (see Rockstar’s example above), but mostly because they’re just a pain in the ass, a speed bump on your way to the place you actually want to go.

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Things have hit a new level of absurdity this week, though, with news that Kerbal Space Program—yes, the one with the little aliens building rockets—now has its own launcher for the Steam version of the game, announced as “a resource for news and updates about KSP & KSP 2 Early Access.”

Given the profile of the game, the fact it’s already launching through Steam and its reputation as a weird little indie sandbox, fan reaction has been understandably negative. Folks are venting on Steam, while on the game’s Reddit workarounds have already been found to disable the launcher entirely.

Publishers, please, we’re begging you. This sucks. As the best comment in that Steam discussion says, “GAMES ON STEAM DO NOT NEED A LAUNCHER. STEAM IS THE LAUNCHER.”

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Luke Plunkett

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November 3, 2022