With the release of numerous screenshots, confirmation of predictably high price points for its standard and premium editions, as well as preorders going live, we are now fully in the midst of the Grand Theft Auto VI hype machine. I’ve got a pretty unpopular takeaway: Wow, this game might actually be gorgeous! Though I’ve often been adversarial to photorealism in games, there is something admirable about GTA 6’s fidelity. Poring over its screenshots makes me want to just take pictures of it in action, which sounds more exciting than actually playing the game at this point.
Look at how luscious the Floridian–I mean Leonidan wetlands look. Look at how impeccably styled Jason and Lucia, GTA 6’s dual protagonists, can be. Look at the sheer diversity of bodies on display across its trailers and how expressively animated everyone is. They look real and beautiful, and it all makes me want to take out a camera and document it for myself. I certainly want to do that more than I want to flip a car in the midst of a police chase, though I guess that could also be fun.
I’ve never really been one for photo modes in games. I’ve dabbled in titles that naturally lent themselves to a deluge of pictures, like Remedy Games’ visually arresting Control, but I much prefer holding an actual camera, walking around new cities and countries, and shooting the landscape. I am, though, at best, a twice-a-year hobbyist, with the exception of all the pictures one casually accrues now that we all have high-quality cameras in our phones. GTA 6 might make all the difference though.
Look at this picture!
I cannot stop thinking about this shot. Look at the shadow that Jason’s jawline and scraggly beard nearly perfectly casts on his own neck. Without looking at the background elements, which more clearly telegraph that this is a video game screenshot, this simply looks like a photo of a real person. The angle and flash on Jason’s clearly sour pout gives this picture the feeling of a surprise candid in the middle of a house party. You can infer a whole story from the composition of the image, in large part because the model at its center is capable of conveying so much in such photorealistic detail. It’s damn impressive, and it’s driven me to madness just thinking I could possibly take a similar shot.
Others are transfixed by the detail of the mud in another screenshot Rockstar made available, but the point remains: GTA 6 is going to be a looker, especially on high-end systems like the PS5 Pro and Xbox Series X (which unfortunately are increasingly out of reach due to price increases).
Regardless of the fact that my poor launch PS5 may struggle with it, I want to pose GTA 6’s cast up and down the Leonidan coast. I want to dress these gorgeous models, set them loose on Vice City, and see what shots the ensuing chaos might yield. It’s unfortunate that Rockstar is locking several fashionable fits behind the pricier Ultimate edition of GTA 6, but alas I hope that we’ll be able to make due with the base game’s options.
I want to be a fly on every wall and photograph all of Vice City’s weirdos. I want to find the perfect vantage points and angles from which to capture everything that the game has to offer. I cannot stress how much more I want to do this than engage in heists, street races, or whatever else GTA 6’s vast playground will have to offer, and I desperately hope GTA 6 launches with the tools to do so. Photo modes are sometimes an afterthought reserved for future updates, if they are ever implemented at all, but this game feels tailor made to be seen through a lens. The lack of any photo mode in the last GTA title doesn’t inspire hope–no, GTA V’s SnapMatic does not count–but these screenshots do, and I’m holding out that Rockstar gets what a gorgeous game it’s got and will enable players to document and share it. There’s always been a real appetite for this stuff.
It’s not that I don’t care about GTA 6, but I increasingly think that I don’t care for the whole thing. The blockbuster nature of it, the criminal underworld it’ll spotlight, the numerous action set pieces I’m sure it’ll feature, the series’ typical satire of modern American culture and politics–of which there is so much to mock–and of course, the ability to virtually vacation in Florida. I do, however, think that if GTA 6 wants to be the most photorealistic game in existence, then I may as well treat it as such and become its very own traveling virtual photographer. If it’s good enough for Jack Quaid–a self-admitted virtual photographer who spends his downtime on set shooting games like Ghost of Yotei and Red Dead Redemption 2–then dammit, it’s good enough for me.
Of course, to get the most dynamic shots out of GTA 6, I will likely need to get into explosive firefights, filthy mudwrestling squabbles, and nail-biting car chases. I will likely have to field requests from odd strangers who, among other things, might demand I track weird creatures to ominous swamps and trip off some bad drugs. Maybe I’ll even do both in tandem. And so to that end, I guess I’m excited to see what GTA 6 has in store and what ridiculous possibilities can be born from its inevitably deep sandbox, if only to get tremendous material for my virtual scrapbook.
Maybe that’s my way into the sweeping craze around GTA 6: my entry point into the mania, as well as my own way to celebrate the artists behind the game. Maybe taking pictures of all of GTA 6’s mess is how I get more deeply involved in the community that is bound to spring up over GTA Online’s inevitable successor or update, whenever that might be released. I don’t yet fully know what to expect from GTA 6, in large part because Rockstar is being frustratingly coy about details despite a quickly approaching release date.
I do know I’ll have some unbelievably good sights to capture once GTA 6 is in my hands. I’m also sure that, like me, there will be hundreds if not thousands of players constantly snapping dazzling pictures and sharing them online in the months and years that’ll follow! I know that, like GTA V and GTAO before it, it’ll be a rich playground for virtual photography for a long time to come. I can’t wait to get shooting … with a camera.
