GTA 6 starts Jason and Lucia small: cheap cars, planned robberies, dates and 62 birds, from Rockstar's Guardian hands-on

The Guardian's Saturday magazine for Nov. 14 carries the longest hands-on look at Grand Theft Auto VI so far. Keza MacDonald spent a day at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, where Rob Nelson, the studio's co-head and one of the game's three creative leads, played through Vice City with her alongside Rockstar's Jennifer Kolbe, trying almost anything she suggested. She previewed the visit in her Nov. 11 newsletter, which we covered on Nov. 12; the magazine piece has the gameplay.

Its biggest news is how modestly the game starts. Here's what Rockstar showed and told her.

Jason and Lucia start small

Jason and Lucia can't steal any car or rob a bank from the first hour. At the start they can only hotwire low-end cars and pick basic locks, and they work up to the higher-value jobs later. Nelson's reasoning: they're a young couple with their backs against the wall, so it wouldn't make sense for them to cause as much carnage as they can.

Robberies you plan first

Instead of opening fire on a crowded street, you scope out a target, whether it's a gas station or an upscale mall boutique. You can disable the security cameras or steal their footage, and find back doors and safe codes, so you can get in without pulling a gun on anyone and get out before witnesses arrive. Skip that and things go wrong fast.

In the demo, after a couple of small crime sprees, Jason and Lucia hit a well-guarded jewelry store. Lucia holds the guards at gunpoint while Jason empties the safe upstairs, until another guard decides to shoot instead of surrendering. Jason knocks him out with the butt of his gun, and the two flee on a stolen motorbike as the police arrive, with cop cars and helicopters chasing them halfway across the district. Back at their own car, they stash the cash, change clothes and lie low on the edge of the city until the heat dies down. That fits what Rockstar's developers told Edge about how the police track you down.

A relationship you can keep, or lose

You can switch freely between Jason and Lucia most of the time, though some acts of the story lock you into one of them. When they're apart, they can text and call each other. When they're together, you can take them on dates: to the gym, out to a bar, to a meditation retreat, or to rob a liquor store. A button makes them hold hands.

The player looks after the relationship, the Guardian writes, and neglecting it has consequences. Nelson told it the relationship is yours to nurture or to lose, and whether it stays a romantic one is up to you.

Empathy, for the first time

Nelson said crime remains fundamental to GTA, and Rockstar isn't punishing people for playing the way they always have, but your actions will affect how the game plays out. Asked whether this is the first GTA to encourage a measure of empathy, he said yes, it follows from the story: Rockstar has built "mechanisms that encourage it, for those who want to."

In the demo, the first person they met outside Jason and Lucia's flamingo-wallpapered apartment was a woman walking her dog. Jason asked whether he could pet it, and did once she agreed. You can listen in on passers-by's conversations, and if you butt in, you might get a puzzled reply or a stream of abuse. The Guardian says the game steers you toward playing in character rather than going on aimless rampages, much as Red Dead Redemption 2 did.

62 birds and magazines you can read

Rockstar's appetite for detail goes further than ever. When MacDonald asked what kind of bird a gull on a beach post was, Jason pulled out binoculars and the gull went into a wildlife logbook; there are 62 kinds of birds to spot. In a gas station, the racks hold fully illustrated magazines you can take down and read, and the Guardian writes that every pedestrian outside was designed by someone, down to their clothes.

Why it took this long

Kolbe told MacDonald that Rockstar could have made a quicker "GTA 5.5," but that isn't what the team wanted; Nelson added that you have to take big swings. He said the limit on the game is no longer technology but people: how much a team can physically build. Kolbe said the developers would never stop working on it if they could, and Nelson admitted it's hard to let go once the finish line is set for you.

The piece also notes that Rockstar is still defending an employment tribunal in Glasgow over the firing of 34 staff in 2025, a case that now runs up to the game's release; our union story has the background.

The magazine piece isn't on the Guardian's website yet; we read it in the Saturday edition. GTA 6 comes out Nov. 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Our gameplay features guide has everything else Rockstar has shown, and our 10 things to do before launch cover what to know on day one.