GTA 6 Locations Should Take Lessons From Bully & Manhunt

The more recent Rockstar Games titles have become larger and more expansive than ever, but GTA 6 would be better if it learned from the past.

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Rockstar has been releasing games for over two decades, and as the years pass it is clear that each new title, both in the Grand Theft Auto and in the Red Dead Redemption series, needs to be bigger and better than the last. Even in the PlayStation 2 era, GTA games went from the packed, concise open world sandbox of Grand Theft Auto 3’s Liberty City to the massive tri-county map of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. While more content in video games is always appreciated, the phrase “bigger isn’t always better” has a tendency to come to mind, especially when traversing the distance between San Andreas’ countryside and Los Santos’ Grove Street.

However, GTA and Red Dead Redemption aren’t the only titles Rockstar has put out. Some of them, like L.A. Noire, suffer the same problem (a lot of empty space) that games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption do, but others, like Manhunt and Bully, offer a more confined playground people can interact with. Unlike the massive open world of games like RDR2, these titles were more streamlined and even linear – something more games these days should consider returning to.

Not every game needs to be a massive open world item hunt with mild survival RPG stats and crafting elements. After the excellent Ghost of Tsushima, which perfected this Assassin’s Creed-style genre to the point where any other developer may feel a little sheepish when trying to measure up, more games should step back from the open world template and return to more hand-crafted, linear experiences. Of course, there is no way a Grand Theft Auto game could get away with having an entirely-linear, non-open world release, but there are elements of both Bully and Manhunt which can be combined with Rockstar’s previous formulas to create a truly unique experience for GTA 6.

GTA 6 Needs More Linear Levels With No Fail States

Grand Theft Auto allows players to ostensibly do whatever they want in the open world, but it regularly railroads them into completing missions via a very specific set of parameters. If players accidentally drive too far in the wrong direction, if they kill someone before they were supposed to, or if they just figure out another way to achieve the goal different from the way Rockstar’s development team decided it should be completed, the mission will fail. This offers too much juxtaposition in player agency and freedom, and every failed mission from an action which feels like it should have been allowed is a moment the player is not engaged with the experience.

GTA 6’s locations and missions could fix this problem by offering more linear areas for objectives to take place in. Grand Theft Auto 5, although it featured more interiors than any other game in the series so far, still feels woefully un-fleshed out in this department, so adding in more interior locations to GTA 6, along with creating levels which can be finished a variety of ways, would go a long way towards making whatever city the game is set in (be it Vice City or somewhere new) more interactive and engaging. Manhunt’s levels were incredibly linear (almost to a fault) and Bully nearly featured as many interior locations (school wings, dorms, hideouts, shops) as it did outdoor ones. A smaller world roughly the size of Bully with the amount of interior design skill on display in Red Dead Redemption 2 would be a fascinating way to scale down GTA 6’s gameplay while still keeping things as interesting and immersive as possible.

GTA 6 Needs Proper Mini-Game Rewards & Life Progression

Grand Theft Auto 5 threw players into the shoes of three different protagonists, all at different points in their life and with different goals and interests. While this occasionally made for compelling character interaction, it also meant that players could jump between mini-games like yoga, tennis, and dog-walking without it really affecting anything of substance. The Grand Theft Auto series has always featured a lot of different kinds of mini-games, but the ones in titles like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas both felt more important to the story and also not as irritating as something like, say, Roman’s constant need to go bowling in GTA 4.

Mini-games in Bully, on the other hand, were directly tied to a player’s grade in that particular class. This not only incentivized players to perform well at the mini-games, but it also provided better context for why the on-screen character would do them in the first place. Even though players were given an entire cutscene and mission introducing yoga in Grand Theft Auto 5, it’s unlikely anyone actually felt like Michael wanted to do yoga in his own free time. Doing mini-games in GTA 6 should not only be thematically relevant (like properly-timed button holds offering varying levels of viciousness in Manhunt’s kills) but also progress whatever new story Rockstar Games is attempting to tell.

Unlike Grand Theft Auto 5, which immediately starts players off in the midst of a heist and introduces shooting, driving, and combat skills all at once, GTA 6 should slow down and return to the methodical progression on display in earlier Rockstar titles. Money should be as difficult to come by as possible, players should only have access to a small portion of the map, and no one should be allowed access to a gun until they buy it from Ammunation, preferably hours later. Manhunt was a much more interesting title before the handgun was introduced, and Bully’s lack of deadly firearms makes players be more creative when deciding how to deal with enemy targets.

Giving GTA 6 players more melee weapons, like what is on display in Manhunt and Bully, would go a long way towards making them feel like they are building towards something exciting, especially if the game puts them in situations where having a gun might actually be helpful. By delaying the gratification of easy weapon access, and perhaps even driving/vehicle access, Rockstar could make players earn these things themselves, which would make them feel much more personally involved in the on-screen character’s story. Since it is unlikely players will ever get to see a Manhunt 3 or a Bully 2, at least right now, the best thing Rockstar could do is take the best mechanics from both and add them in to the nebulous entity fans assume is Grand Theft Auto 6.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/gta6-location-rockstar-bully-manhunt-grand-theft-auto/