GTA 6 is going to be "toned-down"

Ok, it is time to talk about the bad part of Saints Row reboot and why GTA 6 will share it.

It is class-washed. 

No one in Saints Row is representative of poverty culture or comes from a place where people are actually forced into organized crime. 

Neenah could never afford to make a car like that.

Kev could never afford ink like that.

Eli wouldn't hang with criminals. He would be flipping houses.

And none of them would have student loan debt because they wouldn't have the opportunity to even attend school. If they did they wouldn't be in organized crime. (Do not bring up that weird story about J.R., the drug dealer with the B.A. We all know that story because it is exemplary, not expected.)

This is a group of trust-fund criminals. But this is par for the modern course.

GTA V also had some weird class-washing going on. 

Michael had yoga and tennis mini-games. The whole point was that he was toned-down.

Trevor was an over-the-top caricature that was closer to Rick from Rick and Morty, an actual cartoon, than he was an actual drug lord like Todd Skinner or Aaron Jones. He was more entertainment than representation.

Franklin, while having the stereotypical background one might expect of a poverty-bred criminal, was still a level-headed pseudo-hero by the end. Franklin was a Will Smith role. Closer to a Robinhood than a murderer. 

The fact is that there isn't any real, gritty player characters in crime games anymore because nobody wants them.

Everyone wants to be narco saints with their own corridos, committing crimes against a corrupt state to benefit the common people.

Nobody wants to be an arms smuggler supplying weapons to a war criminal committing genocide.

The last game I played that didn't tone anything down was Far Cry 2. Throw away any feeling you have about the gameplay and focus on the story. You are one in a group of many hired mercenaries that are little more than glorified murderers. You are taking part in a bloody civil-war with no real noble cause. You are part of the problem. There are no redeeming qualities about your character in that game, even if you help the priest. 

Contrast that with Far Cry 3, or 4, or 5 and you are back to being a hero (kind of). In fact your character in Far Cry 3 is a lot like your character in Saints Row (2022). You are basically a wealthy trust-fund kid that turns to murdering. You are on holiday in a country torn apart by poverty and civil war. In Far Cry 3 you are a monster, but Vaas and his overused Rita Mae Brown quote (not Einstein) is a bigger monster, equally for using the quote and for being a homicidal maniac. 

Which one is the game considered the greater game by most players and reviewers? The one where you are a hero (kind of). Forget that Far Cry 2 had advanced physics with material penetration, fire propagation, bullet drop, and wind influence. Forget that Far Cry 2 had a sound team that recorded the exact sounds of explosions in and out of water. Forget that it's level maker tools were more complex than later iterations. The reason that Far Cry 2 is not as fondly remembered is that you play a murderer for hire that enters a country stricken by war, disease, and poverty with a seeming intention to perpetuate war, disease, and poverty. It isn't the malaria or the gun jams. Y'all love that tedium. I see how you fawn over Dark Souls and Power Wash Simulator. 

The fact is that most people don't want to be an actual criminal. It is easy to detach yourself when the civilians are robots. When they are less than people, less than animals, just bad AI masquerading in flesh-colored mesh it doesn't trigger anything. It is only when they are characterized, when they are humanized, does it start to pound on the remorse door in your human brain. You don't want to hurt things that you like. You don't want to hurt things that remind you of things that you like. That is why no one is buying Puppy Murder Simulation 2022 or Kitten Blender Simulation '98. Video games don't make people violent because you aren't murdering things that are even remotely realistic. But when we start to humanize the victims, and give players a sense that they are indeed a bad person, is when people stop playing the game. No one wants to be a heartless murderer with no empathy, just jaded and numb to pain and despair. That is, however, at the heart of a true criminal.

Criminals make victims.

The lack of empathy, morality and regard for the betterment of the species is at the heart of every real crime. Whether it is an affluent college stealing from welfare for the thrill of stealing from welfare, because you know they had the money to make a new volleyball court so why do it otherwise, or if it is the ruthless murder of competition, witnesses, and bystanders for the sake of having a monopoly on the distribution of a substance that is addictive and destructive, the crime is the same. It is easy to boil down a crime to a principal of "I before everyone else". 

This isn't the type of character we usually play in video game because it isn't the type of character most people relate to. It is only those that feel powerless that want to feel empowered. People that play video games want to be a hero not a horrible, horrible monster that runs human trafficking rings for the famous and wealthy. We don't want to behead someone's abuela and hang the severed head on the street light outside their house to "send a message". We all wanted to change the ending of Sleeping Dogs instead of wishing we were the ones that caused it. We don't want to make victims that feel real. We don't want to feel like real criminals.

But video games are moving past the robotic worlds of yesteryear as graphics and AI are improved for immersion. We asked for living, breathing worlds and they are being delivered. The characters, all of them from the front of the stage, to the supporting roles, to the very background are all getting more human. This is making it harder to create games where players are expected to have no regard for these characters that are becoming very human. We often know and respect these AI characters in our stories more than the REAL human beings on the other side of an internet conversation. For the prosperity of the product, all video games are being "toned-down" because players are more invested than ever. People are creating role-playing servers on GTA Online for that very reason. Players have started creating stories and lives for these once robotic flesh mesh background props. Hurting them is becoming very disturbing to a growing number of consumers. 

There is no way that GTA 6 will not be less disturbing, less racist, or less criminal than previous entries. Rockstar is going to find other ways to make the game entertaining. They are trying to sell a product, not make people uncomfortable. I think the leaks already show that this GTA is trying to entertain people in new ways for the series. That isn't necessarily a bad thing either. I am willing to bet that you have seen The Hangover, or at least prefer it, to it's much grittier and much less well-known micro-genre contemporary Very Bad Things. It isn't some type of weird snowflake movement or "Social Justice Warrior" assault that is changing the way games are made. It is supply and demand. There is a reason The Hangover did well at the box-office. People like irreverence for social norms. People don't like irreverence for our species.