What ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Tells Us About America

It’s not just stealing cars and running from cops anymore. In the newest “Grand Theft Auto” installment—13 years and an estimated billions of dollars in the making—people in a fictionalized version of Florida can exercise, drink smoothies, pet their dog, go to the club, and so much more. The main characters are in a relationship and players will have to tend to that too. “Galaxy Brain” host Charlie Warzel talks to the gaming journalist Chris Plante about why the details of this game matter, the controversies it may unleash, the weirdest things he’s seen happen in the game, and what “Grand Theft Auto” tells us about America in 2026. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Speaker 01

  Do you want to hear about visionaries creating a better world? People working in conservation, exploration, science and tech alongside storytellers imagining and creating a better future. I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber and founder of the Honnold Foundation, bringing you season six of Planet Visionaries. This season, I speak to guests like National Geographic photographer Tom Pescek and Anna Rappman, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute, USA, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Watch Planet Visionaries on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:49Charlie Warzel?

  Is there a possibility that you can't make a game for everyone in 2026?

• 0:54Speaker 03

  I think it's like saying the NFL season might not land this year because people are worried about CTE or people are worried about people kneeling in the end zone. Like, there's always those things that people say like, this is it. This is the year that I don't watch it. And then it's the biggest season ever for the NFL.

• 1:18Charlie Warzel?

  I'm Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain, a show where today, we're going to be talking about what is poised to be the biggest, most expensive, and arguably most controversial piece of culture and entertainment in recent memory. It is an event that is 13 years in the making. Yes, we're talking about Grand Theft Auto VI. Now, you might not be a video game person, but chances are you know about Grand Theft Auto. And maybe that's because you've played some version since 2001, when Rockstar, the studio that makes the franchise, released GTA III, which was the first version of the game to turn what was a small-budget carjacking game into a cinematic 3D open-world experience.

• 2:01Charlie Warzel?

  Or, maybe you've sat on the couch and you've watched with either glee or horror as somebody else, your partner, your child, your friend, went on a brutal crime spree, getting chased around the city by fleets of police cars and helicopters. Or, maybe you know the game through its controversies. To list a few, there's been outrage over cop killing, the way that the game has depicted sex workers, the fact that sex workers are in the game at all, depictions of torture, celebrities claiming their likenesses have been used, and of course, the concerns that the game could lead to real-world violence. But no matter what your experience, Grand Theft Auto is something else, too. For 25 years now, the franchise has been more than a video game.

• 2:42Charlie Warzel?

  It is one of the most ambitious works of digital art and storytelling that we have. The series has inspired copycats, but it's also expanded the bounds of what is possible in the gaming format. Each iteration has not only expanded the length of the game, but the size of the world and the scope of the story. Rockstar's attention to detail in the game, stuff like, after being discharged from the hospital, characters will have cuts and bruises. That's become a meme unto itself. The series actually seems locked in its own cycle of one-upsmanship, which has moved beyond a video game and into something that feels like its own metaverse. This game, which will take place in a fictional version of Florida, will supposedly allow

• 3:24Charlie Warzel?

  people to play in a vast portion of the state, all the way from the Keys up into the swamps. Now, the GTA phenomenon is also borne out in the economics. GTA V, which came out in 2013, is still selling like crazy. And it is, depending on which ranking you're reading, it's in the top three bestselling games of all time, next to huge online games like Minecraft or Tetris. GTA VI, which is slated to come out November 19th, is estimated to have cost Rockstar in the billions of dollars to make, and it will be the most anticipated game of all time. And so my guest today is someone who can put all of this into perspective. Chris Plant is the co-founder of Polygon, the gaming website.

• 4:06Charlie Warzel?

  He's the host of the Besties and Post Games, two excellent and different podcasts about video games and gaming. Chris has been writing and covering this industry for 20 years, but what I appreciate about his work is that he has this keen eye for the way that this industry interacts with, but also drives, popular culture. So, is the world ready for GTA VI? In a world that is almost devoid of monocultural events, can Grand Theft Auto deliver on that promise? Can a series that has satirized America, often pretty savagely, take on Trump's America and Florida without making everyone mad or insane? GTA is now an American institution.

• 4:46Charlie Warzel?

  But the question remains, can any institution really survive in 2026? Chris Plant joins me now to talk about all of it.

• 5:04Charlie Warzel?

  All right, Chris, welcome to Galaxy Brain.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  I'm so happy to be here. This is wonderful.

• 5:09Charlie Warzel?

  I'm glad. That's the energy we want to bring here. Okay, so, we're here because Grand Theft Auto VI is coming out soon. And, you know, it feels like there are so many things, serious things, happening in the world right now, such that I think the release of this game is going to sneak up on people, which is kind of a ridiculous thing to say about a game that people have been anticipating for about a decade, but like, seriously, for about like, four years. And yet, I still think it's going to sneak up on people. But my working theory is that Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be one of the biggest cultural events of the decade. Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I crazy? Talk to me.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  It's the closest thing we have to a guarantee in popular mainstream media, outside of when Avengers Endgame came out that first time. But this game will be huge because the one that like, came out right before this, you know, over a decade ago, it's still selling about 5 million copies a quarter. So, if that's where it's at right now, you can count on this one being, I mean, there's nothing else like it.

• 6:20Charlie Warzel?

  So, you've written that Grand Theft Auto is the biggest franchise in the world because of the tiny details.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:29Charlie Warzel?

  Unpack that broader theory there for me.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  This game kind of began, and in some ways, launched this era of video games as big, open worlds. There are things that came before it, but it really established that idea of a video game that you could get lost in, that it's not just levels anymore, that when you go to New York City, it looks and feels like New York City. When you go to the version of New York City from Grand Theft Auto, nearly 15 or however many years ago, you can go to Brooklyn. Like, there are not walls around this. And, over the years, they have put all the money from all their success into making those worlds feel more and more realistic, to the point that you can get drunk and go driving in the video game. It's not just stealing cars, you can commit all sorts of horrible crimes.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  You can also do things that aren't crimes at all. You can do yoga, you can go play tennis, you can call people on your cellphone, or just like, flip around through its various apps. It is all about this sense of immersion. So, I think when people who don't play these games think about Grand Theft Auto, they think of the immediate, you steal cars, you shoot innocent people, you fight the police, that's the game. When in reality, what people like about these games, over the course of the, you know, like, dozens, if not hundreds of hours, if not thousands of hours they play them, is just kind of getting lost in these worlds.

• 7:52Charlie Warzel?

  Take me back just for a second to, you know, Grand Theft Auto III comes out in 2001. I was just looking this up. I was actually kind of blown away by the fact that it is like, a couple of weeks after 9/11. So, that's just like-

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it actually got delayed because of 9/11.

• 8:08Charlie Warzel?

  Okay.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they removed things from it because of that.

• 8:11Charlie Warzel?

  What did they remove?

• 8:12Speaker 03

  They changed the look of the police cars because they looked too much like New York cop cars. They changed the flight patterns of the planes in the game. And it's been kind of this generator of its own little controversies, its proximity to that event.

• 8:29Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah, and I want to get to some of those controversies in a second. But going back to, okay, so this thing comes out, the GTA, there's one and two, but then three is, comes out, and it is 3D, and it's this immersive world thing that you're talking about. And I think that this is just important context to like, set us up here for the rest of the discussion. But what do you remember just as a person, as a person interested in video games when this came out? Like, was this orders of magnitude different than the other open worlds that you'd experienced? Was it just different in terms of what you could do, or the presentation, or the sort of, you know, aggressive violence?

• 9:13Charlie Warzel?

  Like, what was it that sort of broke your mind open when this launched way back then?

• 9:19Speaker 03

  It's, okay, what everybody has to do, if you're thinking about this game launching, is forget everything that you know about like, what a video game does now. Because the things that were amazing then, and were really amazing, seem so quaint right now. So, this is, you could drive around a 3D version of New York. The previous versions were 2D, bird's eye views of a car. You could go around, and your car could go up and down hills. And I know that that sounds so boring, but a lot, if not all, 3D open-world games at this time were on these flat surfaces. And it made the worlds feel fake. They felt very artificial.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  And here is a world where the buildings broadly looked different from one another. It wasn't just like a cookie cutter. You could go up and down, you saw a moon, give way to a sun, there was a day-night cycle, there was a radio, where each car might be listening to a different radio station. So, when you stole a luxury car and it was playing opera, you felt like you were stealing it from a person, and not just yet another copy of the same thing, right? All of those little details, plus they actually had some celebrity actors in it, it didn't feel like anything that you would have seen to that point. And you could see it in the previews at the time. People thought, this is like borderline reality, they've done it.

• 10:41Charlie Warzel?

  I remember, I mean, I did actually play some of the 2D games, and like, the series always had those radio stations. But I remember when I first played it, that thing with the radio stations is so very visceral and real that like, there was personality behind all of these things that before were just completely formulaic or one note. And this game, GTA VI, is going to be orders of magnitude bigger than the others. What can we expect here?

• 11:17Speaker 03

  It's everything. I mean, that's how it's gonna feel at first. It is what you will have to find over the course of time playing this game is like, what's not here, right? And we actually know some things that will not be there. We know that references to Donald Trump will not be there. We know that references to the pandemic will not be there. They've said this much, which is deeply strange because this is a game set in Florida. What you're gonna find in it is a story of a Bonnie and Clyde who are avoiding the cops, committing heist, and then also just like living their life, like going to the club, going exercising, getting food. I believe in this game, you're going to be able to like exercise and your body will actually

• 12:02Speaker 03

  show muscle, or you'll eat at meals and you might gain or lose weight. These are obviously quite artificial. It's not as realistic as that sounds, but they want you to have that experience of being the person who commits heist the 99% of the time that they're not actually committing a heist.

• 12:21Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah, there's a quote from this long New York Times preview about the game that has this immersiveness, I'm just gonna read it here for people, which is quote, "Here I am eating an apple, opening the fridge and drinking a smoothie. So this will increase my health temporarily for a while, allowing people to sort of roleplay." And then exiting the apartment, the character steps down to pet a pedestrian's dog. The person from Rockstar who makes the game who's talking to the writer of this piece is that you could buy pet snacks from the convenience stores and dole them out if you wish to the dog. There's been a lot of online fascination with the ability to like,

• 13:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:01Charlie Warzel?

  to have a pet a canine companion. I mean, this level of granularity, like, like, talk to me about...

• 13:10Speaker 03

  What's weird about that thing you just said, though, is like, all of that stuff exists in tons of games. Like, the idea that you can pet a dog, there's a Twitter account that's dedicated to like games you can pet a dog in. The idea of like eating food and then you get a health increase, I mean, that's like Mario. What's so unusual about this game is that they have put so much money and so much resource into animating it so that you see all of it seamlessly. Where in a lot of games, you know, like, you pick up a health item and maybe like a little sparkle happens over your head and you see the bar raise at the top. Where here, it's like, okay, you pick up the item and then they unwrap it and then they put it in their mouth and you actually see the food get masticated and get swallowed and their stomachs adjust.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  And all of that time and resources, it gets back to what you said of the little details, that you're doing things that you do in tons of video games, you're just doing it in a way that it looks like a movie, that it looks consistent perpetually and it's not stopping to just say, "A little number goes up."

• 14:14Charlie Warzel?

  Mm-hmm. And it also feels like the, inside this world, aside of just the options for things that you're going to be able to do, there's a, like, what you're speaking to, this, like, the animations, they're like, I think, like, over 600,000 non-playable character animations. Like, I think to people who don't play video games, there's a little like, I mean, people know now NPC has become like a thing, people say, derogatorily. But like, what does it mean to have, you know, 600,000 non-playable character animations?

• 14:50Speaker 03

  It's, it's a little unhinged. Like, it's detached from reality, and it's certainly detached from like the rest of video game reality. Nobody can afford to do this but Rockstar, the people who are making this game. Nobody is, has a, another, the previous game continuing to bring in, you know, 5 million copies a quarter to just inflate your, your pool of cash. They also have an online mode that is also bringing in money constantly. So because of that, and because they know that that's what people expect from their games, they can put money into these animations that a single animation could take somebody who knows how long. These are not things that you just do in an afternoon. And you can have people who are dedicated just to, let's say, walking animations for these pedestrians.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  You could have people who are dedicated to just trees and shrubbery and nature. All of these individual details can have people assigned to them. And the staff, I, it's in the thousands. I mean, it's about as many people who work on a Marvel movie. I believe it was 4,000 people for GTA 6. Like, that is so many people working so long over such tiny details.

• 16:00Charlie Warzel?

  So, is this going too far? Like, do people, do people want this? Like, do they actually want this? I know, like, as a thought experiment, if you're Rockstar, you're one-upping yourself every time, there's a lot of expectations that this has to be amazing. Do people really want to be walking their dogs or exercising to avoid gaining weight, doing the things that we do here in the world and grumble about? Like, is this gonna be too onerous for people?

• 16:26Speaker 03

  I don't think it will be for this game. I think the problem is bigger than this game. It's the video game market, which thinks, "Well, this is a success, so we should have 50 more of these." And the answer is, in fact, no. We should not have 50 more of these. It's, again, the Marvel comparison, that you see endgame and you're like, "You know what we need, is we need an endgame." And it's like, well, there's only so many of those because they take up so much time. So, yeah, there are a lot of people, people who maybe play one or two games a year, who are going to love that this game does all of the stuff that we're talking about and more, and they're gonna love it so much that it's gonna be the only thing they play. And that'll be a large percentage of the audience. Like, I think it's more than half of people who play video games are not playing games

• 17:11Speaker 03

  that came out this year. You kind of lock in to what you love. And I think this serves that very mainstream portion of video game audience. Do I think, like, every game should be this? Absolutely not. That would be such a colossal waste of artistry and human resources and time.

• 17:29Charlie Warzel?

  I imagine people who are listening to this are much more generalist in terms of, like, specifics of gaming. And I think there's probably a large proportion of people out there who just see the Grand Theft Auto series as the static releases, right? Who don't understand that there is this constant, both economy but also culture, that is, you know, being created and intended to throughout the years. I saw the, you know, the report a while back that there was like a production of Hamlet being staged in an online version of GTA. Like, what, what happens?

• 18:11Charlie Warzel?

  Like, what cultures are being built inside the online version of this game? And how has that sort of changed the franchise?

• 18:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's kind of how many layers deep do you want to go? Because the first layer is this online mode. With Grand Theft Auto V, they also released Grand Theft Auto Online, let you go around that game's version of LA and Southern California, but do it with friends and complete different quests. And they kept updating it with stuff that, hey, if you wanted, you could pay a little bit more money for each month and just keep giving Rockstar money over and over and over again. That was a tremendous success for them. A lot of people loved it after a Rocky launch. Then, players started roleplaying in the virtual world. And if like, any of your listeners are familiar with LARPing, I really feel like I'm the dorkiest person somehow to be on an already somewhat dorky show?

• 19:01Charlie Warzel?

  No, no, no, no, no. Lean in, lean in, Chris.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  When you think of like LARPing, it's live action roleplaying, it's, you know, like, Run and Fest type of stuff. This is people going into the world of Grand Theft Auto and creating their own rules and their own modifications to the games, like actual code, to make it a place where you can do the things that are not what you do in Grand Theft Auto. You could be a police officer, which is the opposite. You could be somebody who just like runs a restaurant. You could be a journalist in it and like actually write up stories about what is happening in Grand Theft Auto. You can get arrested in this version and then have to wait out your time in jail, or maybe somebody like breaks you out.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  It is very much a true roleplay, not like a roleplaying game, just a roleplay experience.

• 19:52Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  And it has become so popular that Rockstar itself has like partnered with one of these. Like, they recognize this and are, want to foster this community.

• 20:03Charlie Warzel?

  What's, I mean, you've listed off a few things, but is there anything that comes to mind as like, the weirdest stuff you've heard of happening?

• 20:10Speaker 03

  I mean, the weirdest stuff for me is more that people modify the game to just do all sorts of things it's not meant to do. And then people will try to play through the game in these completely broken ways. And by that, I mean, they have made versions of the game where every car in the world is going, I think it's like 400 miles per hour, no matter what, at all times. And then you see somebody trying to get through just a single mission when the roads are like filled with 400 mile per hour cars. They made a version where there are hundreds of airplanes that fall out of the sky every 30 seconds. They made another version where you teleport every 50 seconds.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  So, these, in teleporting in this, it'd be like teleporting from Vegas to like Santa Ana, like, a real inconvenience. And people love this stuff. They love taking this world and breaking it. And I think that, that for me, is really why this, these games last, because you create this hyper-real world and then you like, let people be gods with it and like set their own rules to the physics and to the logic. And that's where like, that's where the internet memes come, that's where the Twitch streams come, that's where the YouTube stuff comes. And that is like, that's why the game lasts.

• 21:32Charlie Warzel?

  And not to be all like, you know, galaxy braided about it, but...

• 21:39Charlie Warzel?

  Like, a problem with a lot of technology is that people build these things painstakingly, whether it's, you know, a platform or whatever, and feel like they have an understanding of how the world is going to receive it. There's an idealized way that the world must experience this. And I think a little of like, what is great, if we're going to give Rockstar a little bit of credit for this, is their understanding that the world is going to come into this thing and receive it completely differently and break it and do that. Like, that's what people do with technology, right? They use it in unexpected ways. And so I think that this is like a really fascinating example of this. The other thing that I think about is like, you know, Facebook changed its company name and like hard pivoted and spent billions

• 22:24Charlie Warzel?

  and billions of dollars on a metaverse that no one wanted. And yet, there's just like all these people like, you know, running restaurants and being journalists in Grand Theft Auto V online, right? It's like, there is a metaverse. Metaverses do exist, and there are people in them. It's just not the ones where you're going to have like a meeting and not have legs.

• 22:55Speaker 00

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• 23:28Speaker 01

  Do you want to hear about visionaries creating a better world? People working in conservation, exploration, science, and tech, alongside storytellers imagining and creating a better future. I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber and founder of the Honnold Foundation, bringing you season six of Planet Visionaries. This season, I speak to guests like National Geographic photographer Tom Pescek and Anna Rappman, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute, USA, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Watch Planet Visionaries on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 23:59Charlie Warzel?

  I want to talk a little bit about, you know, controversies in this game. Because Grand Theft Auto is a series that has always been very controversial. There's a few that are, that have like percolated, and I know there's going to be more, specifically surrounding the fact that you said there's like this Bonnie and Clyde style of protagonists. They're a couple, and you have to ideally attend to their relationship and keep each side happy. Some of the articles that I've seen have, sharing these social media posts from people who are arguing that simply playing the game is cheating on your spouse, if you have a spouse. What do you make of a controversy like that?

• 24:43Speaker 03

  I think it's incredible how we've gotten to real controversies meaning so little and fake controversies meaning so much. And by that, I mean, when the original Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels came out, right? These games would be trotted out before Congress. I mean, these are really serious issues. There were Supreme Court cases that decided the future of games as a medium, in part reacting to these video games. And then after that, and it's gotten more and more and more, the controversies around this game become meaningless. Like, you can do some truly, truly heinous things in these games, and I'm happy to list them out. And yet, the thing that people are worried about is like

• 25:27Speaker 03

  this, right? It's like, there was leaked footage of this game that came out where you saw someone like just slaughter multiple police officers, and then also stab to death many unhoused people living under a highway. And it was just a normal sequence in this game. And it's almost old hat at this point, that people are like, yeah, yeah, I mean, we've been, you know, killing people like that forever in these video games. Now, you having a relationship, that seems pretty naughty. I don't know. It's like, everybody wants a piece of it for their SEO, or for their like, to be part of a conversation. And so we get these very bizarre controversies that feel half-hearted, like from the drop.

• 26:12Charlie Warzel?

  Well, what I think is interesting, though, is the way that this kind of mundane, you have to manage a relationship controversy. The way it's, the way it's come into the culture, though, I think speaks more to the culture, right? Like, I don't know if I fully agree that it's like, just people trying to like grab a little like the SEO, because I think it's actual, actual anxieties about what has happened both to gaming and to men and to online life and alienation and whatever, in between the time that something like GTA 3 came out in 2001 and 2026, right? Like, this idea of, of people being worried about

• 26:56Charlie Warzel?

  a digital relationship usurping another one, it seems to speak more to me about cultural anxieties of like, of, you know, what this game is going to give to a either disaffected or, you know, introverted kind of style of dude or woman or whoever, right?

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Yes. That's so interesting to me, because for, I would have put it as this speaks to our general prudishness of the fact that like, someone kissing in a movie is now seen as like, kind of shocking, if it's like a like romantic or sensual kiss versus even in like, the 90s. But what you're saying sounds right. I guess I wasn't seeing that because we've already started to see the hard right reaction to the game, which is, uh-oh, it might be woke. I need to assert my woke, anti-woke bona fides right now and let you know that like, this has bisexual lighting in its cover art, and therefore,

• 28:01Speaker 03

  I won't be playing it. I think that we might, and maybe already are, starting to see a bit of like, what happened around the Odyssey, that the really hard right part of the internet only has one way of reacting to mass cultural things, which is, oh, it must be woke. It's big, it's mainstream. And then they push against it. So, I agree with what you're saying. At the same time, I also feel like there will be a part of the kind of like, the saddest men on the internet who will turn against this game, simply because it is part of pop culture and because you play as a woman of color in it. And like, that has been enough

• 28:41Speaker 03

  for people to get very, very mad on the internet when it comes to their video games.

• 28:47Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah. If you had to predict a couple of these, like, these outrages, like, what do we think? I mean, we've got, right, this takes place in, you know, a facility of Florida, not veiled at all, but there's a lot of Florida man in there, right? Like, type, you know, the meme stereotype of the Florida man, you know, kind of like, like rednecky, doing crazy things stereotype. So I got to imagine there's, there's something there. Like you said, the person of color. How do you think practically this is going to slot into the culture wars?

• 29:26Speaker 03

  Yo, every which way. Every group will have an opportunity to be mad about this game if they so want it. And so it will be on you, dear listener, to decide whether you want to be riled up. By that, I mean, like, there is the violence against police officers. There is the depiction of Miami as a dangerous place full of criminals, which the local leadership of every city that a GTA is in gets very upset about. There is going to be questions about naked bodies. There is a lot of nudity, we believe, in

• 30:07Speaker 03

  this video game, both male and female, something that is not super common in video games, and certainly not common in mainstream media. And those bodies are not just like, quote, sexy bodies. They are very natural bodies, and I think that will cause some issues.

• 30:22Charlie Warzel?

  Let's talk a little bit about how this game is influenced, right? There's a quote from, from that Times article that says, "The players will be able to learn about the world of Grand Theft Auto VI through an in-game feed known as Snapmatic, on which influencers, celebrities, friends of Jason and Lucia will share photos and videos." Now, it's early, clearly, but what are you seeing in terms of how social media and the internet have imprinted on this game's development?

• 30:48Speaker 03

  I think each one of these Grand Theft Auto games, if you'll find a very quick trip to the past, is influenced by whatever the culture is at that time, or at least what its creators see as the dominant culture. The Hauser brothers, who didn't create Grand Theft Auto but have led it, and especially since Grand Theft Auto III, they came up in the music scene. They wanted to run Rockstar like a record label. And the first GTA III, we talked about music, like, it is a game very much influenced by music. Grand Theft Auto IV is a game very much influenced by the mob movies of like, the 80s and the 90s of film, of cinema. Grand Theft Auto V is a game very much about the internet and kind of the beginning of smartphones. It is a game where you finally have apps. You can

• 31:32Speaker 03

  like pull out your phone, you can take pictures. And I think that this game is going to be one very much influenced by short-form media and social media. That is where they are pulling a lot of their anxiety, a lot of their humor. These are ultimately games about the American experience, through the eyes of two brothers who were born in London and kind of born into like artistic royalty in London. But they have a lot of thoughts about America, and so do their writing teams. And, and I think because of that, yes, we are going to look through it through the lens of our time, or at least of, you know, 2018 to 2020, when this game really began development.

• 32:15Charlie Warzel?

  You know, this, you talk about the Hauser brothers being, you know, not from, not from the States, and this idea of wanting to tell the American story, but through the lens of kind of an outsider telling the insider story. And at the same time, it seems like every time we get that reflection, like, Americans are kind of giddy for that, to be perceived by somebody else in this satirical way. Why do you think we love these portrayals, which I have to say, in all the Grand Theft Autos elements, like, they're, they're not that flatter?

• 32:50Speaker 03

  No, no, they're not at all. In this game, we'll be a little different. We can get to that. But I think people...

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Like to see their enemies bullied. Um, I think that is a sad reality of, um, the United States. And I think that this game is happy to oblige in the way that South Park is too, right? Like, we're going to say it. And there are going to be things that you will hear in these games that you don't like. And there are going to be things that you're like, ah, it's pretty funny. I, that, that, that is the type of person that I despise and look at them being for short, portrayed in the worst way possible. I think that's part of it. But I think the other part of it is the story does disappear. Like, ah, you play this game for the 30 or 40 or however many hours that you're going to play it.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  And you see all the silly billboards that are like weird puns about how shitty America is. And that's all there. And then you play for another 40 hours over the next, I don't know, decade. And that all fades. And suddenly what you're left with is actually an exceptionally beautiful ode to America as like a space. And its natural beauty is portrayed in these games. The architecture is so lovingly made. The people in the games that are not in these stories are so human. Like I said, you're going to see naked bodies in a video game that look like people and are just out in the world having a nice time.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  And for all of its cynicism, I think ultimately what really sticks people around these is, is the rest of the stuff. The stuff that would keep you in a role play, right? You're not going to stick around in a role play of these games or an online world because you hate it there. Maybe that brings you in, but it's certainly not what, what locks you in.

• 34:41Charlie Warzel?

  Mm hmm. You, you mentioned that there, or there's a, there's a part that like, we're not going to get, we're not going to get, were you alluding to, to the, the fact that the politics is, is a little bit diluted or, or you know, purposely so?

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Two things. Uh, one, the, the Hauser brothers, this will be the first game without, I believe, Dan Hauser working on it. I believe that he left at some stage of the development. And I think that they have shifted over control in some of the like narrative ambition to fresh talent. And I think also maybe they've finally caught on that their Gen X humor, um, has worn out its welcome. I think, you know, once you get two generations removed, you are able to look into the mirror and be like, yeah, Gen Z kids are not going to want to hear me, you know, make jokes about Pearl Jam and like make, you know, shitty jokes about pronouns. Um, and I think that they had not caught that yet with GTA V.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  I think that was a game, it almost felt at times like they were, they maybe started to realize it halfway through and it was too late to pull back some of the stuff that they were doing. And now the question that I have for the series is, what are you? Like, if you aren't South Park anymore and you aren't going to make this, and they've said as much, they said, you won't be seeing like, not every brand label is going to be some crummy joke. Not everything you hear on the radio station is going to be like parody about America. There is more going on here. Well, then like, what is it? Because ultimately they do have a story that they want to tell. They do have feelings that they want you to feel. And I think, I think that they want to make something honestly more hopeful, which we'll see.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  I mean, this is still a game that like, I think the opening of the Netflix preview was somebody yelling, uh, crackheads are here. So like, they're still doing their thing, but I don't know.

• 36:38Charlie Warzel?

  What this makes me wonder is so much has changed since i- i- in the media environment, in politics, but just in, in, in the world in general, in the space between the last Grand Theft Auto and this one, right? It's not just the amount of time that's elapsed. It's like the acceleration of culture. It's the difference between different generations, right? And their experiences. And I just am wondering, do you think that there's a chance that this could just not land? Like, all of these have landed in part because it's felt like the world has been just like a little bit more monocultural in each one of these and maybe getting less and less and less as the internet accelerates and everything. But now we're in this place where everyone's experience of the world is so completely

• 37:23Charlie Warzel?

  different. It is so, you know, whatever your information bubble is, or whatever your politics are, whatever your niche thing, or, you know, the experience of someone in Gen Z is so much different than someone, you know, who's coming in Gen X or, you know, a boomer or whatever. Is there a possibility that you can't make a game for everyone in 2026?

• 37:45Speaker 03

  I think it's like saying the NFL season might not land this year because people are worried about CTE or people are worried about people kneeling in the end zone. Like, there's always those things that people say like, this is it. This is the year that I don't watch it. And then it's the biggest season ever for the NFL. I think this is just one of those truly weird cultural forces that is so big that it's, it's genuinely hard for me to imagine it failing in any significant way, barring, I don't even know what. Like, it would truly have to have something, I think, like very explicit politically for it to, for it to be like that big of a disaster, right?

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Like, if there was a mission about Donald Trump, if there was a mission about Charlie Kirk, like, those are the things where I think you could maybe start to see it. But this is, again, when it's making this much money, I'm, I'm sure that they have dotted every I and crossed every T to make this feel like it has teeth, but also to make sure that there's nothing in here that is going to even remotely run the risk of kicking the real hornet's nest.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  If you're trying to get news today, you'll find a lot of biased algorithms, rage bait and AI noise. Thanks, social media. That's where Inpress comes in. It's a social platform on top of factual journalism, not the other way around. Track your reading and earn points. It's like Strava for your brain. Plus, you can connect with other users in your city who share your genuine curiosity. Ditch the echo chamber for reality with Inpress. Download it today for iOS or Android at inpress.app. That's I, N as in news nerd, press.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Do you want to hear about visionaries creating a better world? People working in conservation, exploration, science and tech alongside storytellers imagining and creating a better future. I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber and founder of the Honnold Foundation, bringing you season six of Planet Visionaries. This season, I speak to guests like National Geographic photographer Tom Pescek and Anna Rappam, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute, USA, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Watch Planet Visionaries on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 40:11Charlie Warzel?

  As the game then comes out in the real world, let's, let's say it's kind of is failure proof in some ways. We do need metrics to judge its success, right? Like, how, what, what are the things you'll be looking at in terms of judging that? People are obviously going to play it, but what is, what does success mean for a game that is this big? How do we, how do we really evaluate it?

• 40:30Speaker 03

  So they're going to be very careful with how they roll this out and how they continue to have those numbers go up. They've already laid the groundwork for that here. So this game is going to come out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, S, whatever, um, this fall. And then a PC version is going to come out sometime next year and presumably. And then an online mode is going to come out. And by the time we get past that, the new Xbox and PlayStation will probably be out. So then they'll release it again for that. And they'll have all the graphical upgrades everybody wanted on PC. This thing, to be clear, I don't know how it's even going to run on modern hardware. I feel like you're going to have to like play with your headphones on with the volume

• 41:13Speaker 03

  up because your machine's going to be overheating. But each of those opportunities, right, is just the, the, another opportunity to get a sale. So when you see that GTA V has 230 million copies sold, that's not 230 million people who went and bought the game. That is many people who have bought that game multiple times. That is that game being offered as a bonus, as part of maybe a Netflix subscription or something like that. I don't know if it's Netflix that did that, but I think Sony or Xbox did at certain points. There are ways to just continue to get this game in front of people over the course of a decade, really.

• 41:50Charlie Warzel?

  It feels like there's actually been some backlash that I've seen about that, that people are already frustrated with Rockstar with this. There is the sort of like, why don't you just release it for everything right away? Right? Like, why are you, are you not allowing certain people to do that? There's also, I don't believe there's a physical copy of the game. It's all going to be digital, to which people are saying, of course, here we go. This is how you charge me 12 times for this, this thing, right?

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, this, it's a fair thing to be concerned about, but it's, it's a much bigger issue than this game. And I think weirdly Rockstar got lucky in a grim way because Sony PlayStation came out shortly after this saying, actually, we're not planning to do discs for any of our games in the future. And suddenly that conversation shifted.

• 42:35Charlie Warzel?

  But, you know, in general, I think top line here is that there are people who are frustrated with Rockstar right now. There's also been some issues with Rockstar of alleged union busting. Uh, they, they sort of strenuously deny this, but there were, I think it was like 30 or more employees who were, who were fired, uh, for participating in a Slack that may have had something to do with unionizing. Rockstar did strenuously deny this. What's going on right now, though, in terms of the perception of the company with all of this stuff swirling around in advance of obviously their biggest release ever?

• 43:19Speaker 03

  So this is what I'm curious about when the release actually hits, because I don't think this stuff has hit the kind of mainstream conversation yet. And you're right. Uh, I think it was 31 people dismissed, October 2025, claims of gross misconduct for sharing information in, uh, places that were not approved by the company. That was a discord that was being used to, and I think the team was hoping to create a union. Very much still getting processed through the UK system, right? It seems not, not great.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  I don't think those stories happen on the mainstream spaces until the game is out and suddenly CNBC needs something to talk about. What's their angle? Fox Business needs something to talk about. What's their angle? And suddenly every angle gets brought in and all of these controversies that are largely living right now in forums and on video game websites are going to become fodder for the larger media ecosystem. And I think that is what we might see around this game at its launch. I think some of these controversies around, hey, wait, you don't even get to own the game? Like, as I understood it, what's up with that? Hey, you maybe busted a union? Or at least that's what people are claiming?

• 44:35Speaker 03

  What is up with that? And those things also tie into these much, much, much bigger stories of what's happening in games in general. Unions is the anxiety around an industry in which layoffs happen seemingly every day, and they are massive amounts of layoffs. And those things are about, I don't know, it feels like they're just about to like hammer together in a way that games culture just has not had the opportunity to be in front of the microphone with in a very long time.

• 45:02Charlie Warzel?

  Well, and then add to that the avalanche of the cultural, political, whatever controversies that are coming in the game, right? The culture war thing. I mean, it seems to me like that will also hit and create this kind of perfect storm. If you had to guess, what are your odds that either via Truth Social or in some other format that Donald Trump mentions GTA 6?

• 45:31Speaker 03

  There's, again, I wouldn't even, there's no bet. He will.

• 45:36Charlie Warzel?

  No bet.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  There is, there will be an AI-generated Grand Theft Auto VI post on Truth Social, at least shared by the president before the end of November. I would liquidate everything I have if you gave me that bet.

• 45:53Charlie Warzel?

  Don't do that.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  It would be the easiest bet that there will be. Because that's the other thing is, this administration loves using video games as part of their kind of like, I don't know, propaganda cudgel. They have been doing this with everything from Halo to Tetris. And nobody's really in a position to hold them accountable for it, because people know what happens if you try.

• 46:19Charlie Warzel?

  I am curious if Donald Trump will actually clock this. Personally, but I do think you're right, that this administration loves to use games and also just anything that's in popular culture. I think, as I'm talking about this, I'm genuinely not prepared for the amount of like reenactment-style things that are going to happen.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:47Charlie Warzel?

  Like, I'm just, we're kind of coming off the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And the stuff, like the sort of cynical, awful memes that even people on the right make around this, like, I'm just thinking of like reenactments of all these awful things that have happened in the past 13 years since the last game, and just the ability to do that in a higher definition thing. I'm not ready.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  I can be my, like, this is like the bet I wouldn't make, but a bet that I have like stuck in my head.

• 47:19Charlie Warzel?

  Please.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Which is, all of this might happen, and probably will happen. You're like, almost certainly, people are going to use the game to make all these awful things, and it's going to be a political minefield, and yada, yada, yada. But, but, but, what if, because the election happens like two or three weeks before this game comes out? I think people, there's a release that can happen after these things, where everybody's like, you know what? Thanksgiving's coming, Christmas is here, we got through yet another election cycle in America. I just want to play my video games. I don't want to hear about another, I don't want to see another ad for a politician ever again. I don't want to hear about any of this. I don't want to talk to my family about it. I don't want any of it. And I think

• 48:01Speaker 03

  that there is a lot of people who that is going to fall onto right when this game comes out. And I think that there's this weird scenario where this game launches and, let me be clear, I'm not talking about like Hands Across America. Like, it's not that. But like, where it launches and weirdly, it lands kind of softly, that it isn't seen as all of these controversies, because people are so burnt out by the time that the election ends, that they just want to like, I don't know, play a cool video game.

• 48:35Charlie Warzel?

  That's a, that's a really interesting theory. So, yeah, so I believe the game comes out November 19. There, it is coming. That's very strategic to put it after an election cycle. It's also very strategic to put it right before everyone, you know, takes a couple of days off and eats a bunch of turkey and the holiday season. I just saw a thing with the NBA players. Steven Adams predicts that the level of play across all sports is going to plummet after November 19th, right? Just like, no, guys, like, we're going to be in our hotel room, staying up too late, playing this game. You know, we're not going to go to the gym, we're not going to practice as much. Obviously tongue-in-cheat, but I think also speaking to the idea that there is this way that it's gonna, it's, there

• 49:20Charlie Warzel?

  may be that, like, societal lull if people really are getting sucked into this at the kind of unprecedented level that people are expecting. Okay, so, last question here. You wrote this post on your Substack, the title of which I really like. It's titled, "How to See the Profound Beauty in Gaming's Tiniest Details." And in the post, you talk about, it's not just about GTA, clearly, but you talk about getting really mired in the obsessiveness of these very elaborately constructed worlds. And also, just kind of delightfully fixating on some of these questions. Two of the questions that you listed was,

• 50:04Charlie Warzel?

  "Do GTA V street signs comply with California law? And what is the oldest building in Grand Theft Auto V?"

• 50:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:11Charlie Warzel?

  I, I love this. I love the idea of treating these big worlds with the seriousness of the real world, and thinking about especially the in-game bureaucracy. And so, what questions are you planning to investigate in GTA 6?

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Oh, that is such a great question. I should, you know, give a shout out where it's due. That was an interview with this YouTube creator named Annie Austin, who actually goes and figures these things out. Like, what's the oldest building in Liberty City? And then uses the design of the architecture versus real architecture books and historians to find out the answer. It's great.

• 50:53Charlie Warzel?

  For me, I'm not that patient, or that smart. But the forever things that I love is the, how long will it take me to walk from one end of a map to the other? And that is such a great way to see the artistry of a video game like this, and actually see all the stuff that is not the like, shooting people, and the quests, and all the obligations, and all the little things that they put in the game to make you, you know, make all the chemicals release in your brain. If you start as far as you can on one end of the map of South Florida, I think maybe like in the Keys, whatever they call it in this video game, and you try to get as far north as you can, the sheer amount of stuff that you

• 51:36Charlie Warzel?

  will see, you will see, like, obvious things that you will find in Miami. You'll find like the clubs, and strip clubs, and more clubs, and high rises, and also more clubs. You'll see all of that, right? But then you'll also like go through a bayou and be able to see crocodiles, and people fishing, and people jumping off of diving boards, and all sorts of bonkers animations. And then you'll get even further north, and you'll see versions of the American South. And you'll see kind of this like, almost desiccated, sun-scorched landscape from global warming. You'll see all of this, and all the attention to detail in it, down to the plumbing that is pushing the water through these fake environments.

• 52:20Charlie Warzel?

  That is what I love, because, again, 4,000 people worked on this for nearly a decade. When you think about how much stuff that they made, there's a very real chance that we will not be seeing some little detail until 10, 15 years from now. If you go and watch the videos by that creator that I mentioned, there are things that he's saying that I don't think anybody has ever bothered to notice, because they're assembling a part of the game that there's no reason to go to. And yet, they made it anyway. And that is, like, that's what I'm really, really looking forward to. No, what I love about that is that's a reminder of the artistry of all this, right?

• 53:01Charlie Warzel?

  And there's going to be this long series of, as we just detailed, controversies and takes about all of it. But, you know, at the end of the day, too, what it is, is it's a, it's a kind of strangely living, breathing work of art and culture. Chris, hopefully, once this thing's out in the world, we could, we could send you out there to go do, to LARP some journalism in Grand Theft Auto VI and report back to us, to tell us what the oldest building is, or, I don't know, uncover a corrupt, you know, gambling ring or something. I don't know, I don't know what. But we're going to, we're going to

• 53:42Charlie Warzel?

  put you on the case and have you back to talk about this once, once it's entered the world. But thank you so much for coming on Galaxy Brand. I really appreciate it.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 53:52Charlie Warzel?

  So that's it for us here. A quick reminder, we are doing an Ask Me Anything episode with me, Charlie, the host. You can ask me anything, truly, stuff about the show, stuff about my reporting process, any burning questions about tech, social media, what I'm reading, what I'm listening to. Everything is on the table. I can't wait to get your questions. You can shoot me an email at [email protected]. Put Galaxy Brand AMA in your subject line. And if you liked what you saw here, as a reminder, new episodes of Galaxy Brain drop every Friday. You can subscribe on The Atlantic's YouTube channel, or on Apple, or Spotify,

• 54:37Charlie Warzel?

  or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you want to support this work, and the work of all of my colleagues here at The Atlantic, you can subscribe to the publication, theatlantic.com/listener. That is theatlantic.com/listener. Thanks so much, and I'll see you on the internet.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  If you're trying to get news today, you'll find a lot of biased algorithms, rage bait, and AI noise. Thanks, social media. That's where Inpress comes in. It's a social platform on top of factual journalism, not the other way around. Track your reading and earn points. It's like Strava for your brain. Plus, you can connect with other users in your city who share your genuine curiosity. Ditch the echo chamber for reality with Inpress. Download it today for iOS or Android at inpress.app. That's I, N as in news nerd, press.