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Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

I see your point, and maybe I'm over indexing on this or not describing it well.

I don't see myself in either of these characters, but I do see them as representative of society, whereas I don't see the GTAV characters as representative of society. However, I think I did when I first played GTAV the year it came out.

The last game I played was James Bond First Light – and that's for the escapism you describe, I got to "be" James Bond, great. But in the same way, the game and story felt relevant today, with aspects being believable in 2026, which is a stark comparison to how watching Thunderball recently made me feel – that was jarring and much harder to "escape" into because of how out of touch it was (obviously understandably so).

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I get what you are saying, I however just don't agree. GTA has it roots in a story about the criminal world in a version of a US city with a clash of many subcultures within it.

I don't see at what time they tried to cater to teens, outside the parodying themes of that generation which they fit perfectly. I saw that every installment representative of a criminal from one of these cultures to top of the criminal food chain. Be it the Scar Face parody of Vice City, Gang culture of San Andreas, the Immegrant story of the 4th or the trio they went for with the 5 with the LA story melting pot.

As a none-american it perfectly represented the characters and views of over the top depictions of the movie version of these places.

> Be it the Scar Face parody of Vice City, Gang culture of San Andreas, the Immegrant story of the 4th or the trio they went for with the 5 with the LA story melting pot.

I think this is the crux of my point actually – these are all stories that were more relevant at the times they were released. GTAV seems to be more down to earth, and modernised the stereotypes that it's poking fun at.

Gangsters don't resonate right now (in my opinion), immigration is viewed very differently, wealth inequality is viewed differently.

> As a non-american it perfectly represented the characters and views of over the top depictions of the movie version of these places.

Maybe we disagree a little here – also not American, but where I feel that GTAV was more of that over the top depiction of the movie version, I'm getting a different vibe from GTAVI, something a little closer to the real America we see today.

> I'm getting a different vibe from GTAVI, something a little closer to the real America we see today.

It seems like they are adding a lot of references to viral videos and news clips into the game. I’m an American, and while these things happened, they are all exceptional events, that’s why they made the news and went viral. Day-to-day, these over the top things aren’t things most people see all the time. The game seems like it’s going to take the “Florida Man” stereotype and turn it up to 11… as a general vibe. I don’t know that we saw enough to get a good read on the main characters, at least I haven’t.

I think it’s easy to get a skewed perspective of what real America is like from the news or bodycam footage… but it is entertaining, which will hopefully make for a good game.

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