Grand Theft Auto’s Brutal Honesty Is Its Best Quality… and a Cautionary Tale

If you own a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X/S, you’re not fooling anyone when you call in sick this November. By then, Grand Theft Auto VI will be the biggest video game in the world, and not even a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake will be able to compete for the title.

Despite Rockstar’s (and Sony’s) frustrating decision to cease physical sales, there’s little doubt Grand Theft Auto VI will sell hundreds of millions of copies, just like its predecessor. For me, that’s a tough pill to swallow. At a time when tangible, non-licensed, DRM-free games are increasingly scarce, it’s hard not to view Rockstar and GTA VI as perpetuators of the greed and anti-consumerism undermining an industry we all love.

And not to get too meta, but perhaps that’s only fitting. Grand Theft Auto VI is the most anticipated entertainment launch of all time. It’s a perfect reflection of late-stage capitalism: a series that started with modest means (~100 developers, under threat of constant cancelation) and grew 40x in scope over the next 20 years. This is the game to end all games — a billion-dollar juggernaut that’s surely been consulted on and focus-tested to excess. “GTA Online 2,” as dubbed by fans and outlets alike, hasn’t even been formally unveiled, yet we all know it’s coming and will be monetized to the moon and back.

Will GTA VI provide oodles of enjoyment to people in this country and around the globe? Unquestionably yes. Does a part of me wish it didn’t exist? Also yes. Will I still play it? Absolutely. Such is today’s world: a constant pulse of contradictions, mixed feelings, and self-sabotage. My heart says to vote with my wallet and skip the release, but my mind says it’s bullshit to expect consumers to “do the right thing” when companies are always doing the wrong things. Plus, there are many, many worse things to be incensed about.

This timeline is a scary one, and paradoxically, Grand Theft Auto is perhaps the best analog we have to shine a light on everything that’s so messed up about our country in 2026. It’s a series that gives its best satirical impression of the world we live in, but much like Saturday Night Live or The Onion, it’s impossible to satirize what’s already one big fucking joke.

The Devil Among Us

For years, I’ve eagerly consumed Rockstar’s games. Bully and Grand Theft Auto IV remain two of my favorite open-world games ever. L.A. Noire, though flawed, pushed the boundaries of storytelling with its detailed motion capture and memorable interrogations. Max Payne 3 was a terrific extension of Remedy’s classic series, and Red Dead Redemption was the successful breakout IP no one saw coming.

There was, however, one game that got away: Grand Theft Auto V. Despite buying it on PS3 in 2013, then again for Xbox One in 2014 and a third time for PS5 in 2022, I couldn’t find the same Rockstar magic I’d enjoyed in years past. I’ve written about my GTA V blues on numerous occasions, but no matter how hard I’ve tried to get back into it, the game has eluded me… Until now.

This past month, I finally dug my PS5 copy out of backlog hell and I must say, I’m starting to understand what all the hubbub is about. What I once considered a tedious game filled with monotonous quests — towing cars as Franklin, doing yoga as Michael, operating a freight crane as Trevor — has taken on new meaning for me in 2026. Yes, it’s still obtuse at times, but the more I play in GTA V’s carefully curated sandbox, the more I realize how ahead of its time this game truly was.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Grand Theft Auto’s depiction of Trevor Philips. The long-time partner of Michael Townley (now De Santa), Trevor is a loose cannon — someone who treats violence as an everyday means to an end. He’s quick to anger, impossible to reason with, and willing to kill anyone who stands in his way. As Michael warns his protégé Franklin, “He’s hell walking on Earth.”

That’s no exaggeration. In my 30+ hours of playing GTA V so far, I’ve seen Trevor mercilessly curb-stomp the leader of a biker gang; set fire to a family’s house; abduct people to sell to a cult; torture a man on behalf of the FIB (aka FBI); stuff someone in a car trunk and execute them via oncoming train; and about a thousand other things. It’s uncomfortable playing as Trevor. He’s not a good human being.

All the while, Trevor’s spouting the typical nonsense you’d expect from a repressed troglodyte. He loves his guns. He hates the libs. While Michael’s spent the past 10 years building a (dysfunctional) family in the burbs of Los Santos, Trevor has been living in a trailer in the deep-red country, befriending cockroaches and spreading STIs. Picture the worst MAGA cultist you know, and make them 10 times more detestable. That’s Trevor.

Spreading Hate

For most of the game, Trevor does exactly what Michael warns: He rampages. His missions focus on violence, killing, and weaponizing his rage — sometimes in silly scenarios (e.g., mowing down prepsters because they belittled his Canadian accent), but usually in far darker ones.

In a particularly hard-hitting questline, Trevor is recruited by the Civil Border Patrol, who need his help rounding up “illegal aliens” so they can be deported. Never mind the fact that one of the two Border Patrol agents is Eastern European and can’t speak a lick of English — he’s a patriot, dammit, and those filthy immigrants just aren’t! At one point, the agents give Trevor a stun gun, which he’s happy to put to use.

I’d been uncomfortable wielding a gun as Trevor before, but somehow, this scenario stood out more than all the others. Rounding up unsuspecting people of color — not because of any actual idealism, but because it’s a power trip and an outlet for internalized hatred — hits too close to home in a country where masked ICE agents can pull people off the streets and into a van, or murder them in cold blood.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has existed long before GTA V, but not even Rockstar could have foreseen just how commonplace this threat of forced deportation would become. Violence is systemic to the history of America, and there have always been bigots like Trevor who boldly lead other idiots under the guise of “patriotism.” Hell, he’d be the first person to storm the Capitol, if he could.

A Backbone of Steel

Although it’s pretty clear to me which side of history the Rockstar developers were on when making GTA V, I’m sure there’s a large contingent of fans who relished playing as Trevor. To those folks, Grand Theft Auto is just as much an open-world sandbox as it is a murder simulator, and events like the Civil Border Patrol questline are just opportunities to live out other Trumpian talking points.

For a while, I thought Rockstar was content letting Trevor’s violence speak for itself. I didn’t think we’d get a “happy” resolution in a world that seemed to settle for “not terrible.” Rockstar casts a very wide net with the GTA games — big enough for hundreds of millions of players, many of whom are undoubtedly unsavory folks — so it wouldn’t have surprised me had they taken “the Ed Sheeran route” (as I now call it) and played to both sides of the political spectrum.

To my surprise, they did not go that route — at least in “Minute Man Blues.” The culmination of the Border Patrol questline, this mission begins with Trevor approaching a Mexican immigrant, Manuel, whom he’d previously abducted. Bewildered, Trevor asks the man why he hasn’t been deported yet, to which Manuel has the perfect response: “They can’t kick me out, stupid man. My family has been here for 200 years. I’m more American than you… not that it’s anything to boast about.”

Preach!! Say it louder for the people in the back!

Even when faced with “Hell walking on Earth,” the man stares down the devil with zero fear. He and his ancestors have been persecuted for hundreds of years, ever since European colonizers first landed on their native land. He has just as much of a right to live here as anyone. That Trevor bought into xenophobic hogwash and rushed to shut the door behind him (despite, again, being Canadian) only goes to show how mob mentality works for white Anglo-Saxons in the United States.

The Good and the Bad

Grand Theft Auto has always been a brutally introspective series. In GTA IV, the tale of Niko Bellic was a tale of the American Dream — an Eastern-European immigrant who walked off the boat (literally) and rose to riches… albeit by hustling, stealing, and killing plenty of mob bosses in his way. In San Andreas, Carl “CJ” Johnson’s story covered everything from gang violence to police brutality. No matter how dark and dreary our country gets, rest assured Rockstar has plans to shine a light on it.

Which brings me to Grand Theft Auto VI: the game that will define an entire generation, if not many more. Rockstar has already made clear that it will not satirize time-bound topics like COVID-19 or Trump’s fascist, authoritarian regime, for fear of those references becoming “dated.” I’m not sure I buy the rationale; if anything, it’s pretty flimsy cover for a company trying to cater to all Americans at a time when this country is the most divided it’s been since the Civil War.

Just look at how Rockstar is marketing GTA VI. Beyond using Netflix to draw 31+ million pairs of eyeballs to its “Extended Look” trailer, Rockstar is partnering with dozens of singers and rappers on a 34-track original album coming to retailers day-and-date with the game’s November 19 release. Six tracks have been revealed so far:

• “That’s It” by Yung Lean, feat. Future and Metro Boomin’
• “RHYNO” by Travis Scott
• “Sexy Magic” by CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, Pink Pantheress, Fred again.., and Etienne de Crécy
• “Last Thing You Need” by Morgan Wallen
• “Macacoa 2000” by Rauw Alejandro
• “Bright Lights, Big City” by Keith Richards

Based on these tracks alone, I can already tell Rockstar’s going for mass appeal. Only Grand Theft Auto would pair Black artists like Future and Travis Scott with Morgan Wallen, who famously fired off the n-word like one of his hunting rifles. Only GTA would include Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Rauw Alejandro, who Trevor would’ve surely deported. (Bless you again, Manuel.) We’ve got Keith Richards, who almost got into a knife fight with Trump in 1989; some Argentinian representation via CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso; and, of course, Pink Pantheress. Yep, this is America all right — all we’re missing is Donald Glover.

These artists shouldn’t co-exist on an album. Yet in a world where Sora, John Wick, and Sabrina Carpenter can team up in Fortnite, anything’s possible through the power of late-stage capitalism, corporate team-ups, and quiet backdoor deals. What fun!

Too Big To Fail

Grand Theft Auto has long been a franchise that’s too big to fail. GTA V was wildly successful (220+ million copies sold to date), but GTA IV (25+ million) and San Andreas (30+ million) weren’t anything to scoff at either. Still, it’s hard to imagine GTA VI coming close to the success of its predecessor, let alone surpassing it. The aftereffects of its launch may shake the industry, yet whether that’s for good or bad remains to be seen. My gut says the latter.

I dislike how we got here. As I said up top, I like Rockstar’s work but not to the extent that thousands of developers at the studio — and tens of thousands more across the industry — are directly impacted by how well a single game performs. That’s dystopian. I want the game to succeed, but it doing so mainly benefits Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick; the only upside for everyone else is an industry that doesn’t buckle under its own weight.

Grand Theft Auto VI goes against the moral compass of anyone who values the mom-and-pop shop over the corporation; social welfare over the cushiness of the new; independent creations over bloated budgets and carefree spending. But it’s also an accurate depiction of this country: blue vs. red, progress vs. status quo, love vs. hatred. It forces us to take a cold, hard look in the mirror, and I am morbidly interested to see how many do so when GTA VI hits the hard drives this fall.

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Grand Theft Auto VI, developed by Rockstar Games and published by Take-Two Interactive, releases on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. (No, we do not expect to get a review code.)