Exclusive: Ex-Rockstar dev gives us the inside scoop on what GTA 6s Extended Look reveals about its protagonists Jason Duval is a robot a Terminator'

Date:
Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Description:
The Netflix exclusive gameplay trailer pulled in 30m views in four days. What more can we learn about the most-anticipated title of the 21st century?

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The pantheon of US crime dramas is peppered with ruthless, hyperreal villains who have risked it all for a shot at the American Dream. Michael Corleone, Tony Montana, Keyser Sze, Tony Soprano, and Marsellus Wallace are but five of the fictional strongmen now synonymous with getting things done by hook or by crook.

In the 30 years since the inception of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Rockstar Games has evolved cinematic storytelling in video games to the point that you could, quite feasibly, add Tommy Vercetti, Toni Cipriani, Carl CJ Johnson, Niko Bellic, and Michael De Santa to that list. In the slipstream of Grand Theft Auto 6 s Extended Look , multiple questions emerge about what has become the most-anticipated video game of the 21st century. Most notably,
will we soon be able to add Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos to this scurrilous list of ill-gotten individuals intoxicated by life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

As a former developer at Rockstar Games and seasoned industry pro, Mike York is well positioned to explain what the condensed 26-minute slice of gameplay reveals about the lead characters and the title itself. Miami twice (Image credit: Rcokstar Games) I see a heavier tone and a slower pace, York says of the follow-up to 2013s GTA 5 , which was set in San Andreas, a fictionalised version of California. This time, Rockstar has returned to Vice City, their neon-hued take on the sun-blasted, Floridian playground of Leonida, to bring the couple to life in a Bonnie-and-Clyde-style misadventure befitting the studios wild and vivid creative vision. You may like Grand Theft Auto 6 'Extended Look' on Netflix live updates: all the reveals as they happen 16
new GTA 6 details we learned from the big Extended Look gameplay video The latest GTA 6 leak shows Vice City from above and the level of detail is simply staggering

Jason moves around very slow and methodical. That's the first thing I
noticed. He seemed like a robot a Terminator walking through every scene and mowing people down with no emotion, suggests York of the US military veteran, mirroring some of the observations and criticisms that have accompanied the exclusive Netflix promo since it launched last week.

Will the male lead stand up against the aforementioned icons, who have helped cement Rockstars brand as pixelated pioneers in these imagined, open-world environments? Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me
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York continues: I want to see that. Niko Belic, for example, is a great character. He was witty and had some great lines, which is why GTA 4 became one of my favourites in the series. I hope we see more of that because right now, Jason seems quite deadpan and monotone.

Rockstar usually gives us a bunch of neat characters who are funny and have their own flair. I don't know if we're going to see that with Jason, but I hope we do, he comments. Certainly, if you rewatch the Extended Look, Jasons demeanour he warns Lucia to stay cool in the opening seconds as they become embroiled in a meth lab shootout and then scolds her for being late when the pair drive to meet aged accomplice Brian Heder is of a more self-contained, uptight and introspective personality than his vivacious, chameleonic, and combustible counterpart.

Perhaps thats the point. As switchable characters, will Lucia provide the Yin to Jasons Yang? I think that's what they're going to do, continues York, pinpointing the passage where the duo emerges at the Effluvia rooftop bar. What to read next 'This almost looks like real footage' A new look at GTA 6 and Vice City has been revealed and fans are eating it up Rockstar could be following the Red Dead Redemption 2 playbook with GTA 6's release here's
what that could mean for trailer 3, the gameplay reveal, and more GTA 6 will launch at 30fps on PS5 and Xbox 'for now', confirms Rockstar

There's that moment in the trailer where they get in an elevator, and he
says: Sometimes I'm just more comfortable when I have to use a gun. She replies: Just be charming! Lucia's got this attitude where you can tell she's trying to break him out of his shell. She's the one that probably goes into missions gung-ho, all guns blazing. Wired for sound (Image credit: Rcokstar Games) Indeed, there are further clues about the duos depiction in the fluorescent, 80s-colored Extended Look soundtrack. When the focus is on
Jason, People Are People by Depeche Mode (featuring the line I can't understand. What makes a man hate another man? Help me understand) is used
for context. Meanwhile, Lucias section of the clip, which sees her marching into Zekes Gadgets store to shoot up the place and flipping the bird at a swarm of cops when they make their escape from a second robbery, aptly uses global chart-smashing Devil Woman as the musical backdrop.

With evil on her mind Shes gonna get you! warns the enduringly improbable British pop star Cliff Richard, in a phase that could be seen as Rockstars opportunity to showcase a central theme of female empowerment and mutual respect between sexes that has been almost entirely absent from the GTA series. In the toxic shadow of an era defined and divided by the manosphere, could this be an attempt to reset this predominant tone against countless accusations of misogyny that have stalked each title?

A lot of their games have been viewed in that light. It'd be cool for them to shake that up and flip it on its head, confirms York. Currently working on
Six Days in Fallujah for Highwire Games in Seattle, Washington, he joined Rockstar New England a studio based in Andover, Massachusetts in 2012, leaving three years later after playing an active role in the development of GTA 5 and its online incarnation. Red Dead detention (Image credit: Rcokstar Games) Yorks induction into the much-mythologised studios work culture would prove to be prophetic. On his first day, he was instructed to play Red Dead Redemption in full for the first time, in fact to prepare for what was coming down the track: extensive animations on its Western-themed successor, where he was charged with designing multiple animal models intended to maraud across the North American frontier at the turn of the 20th century.

Elsewhere, his portfolio including trailers for Dead Island: Riptide , Fortnite , The Walking Dead , Borderlands 3 and Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines suggests York could illuminate the top-secret processes that underpin the massively hyped Extended Look, which is only the third official piece of formal storytelling to accompany GTA 6 and pulled in more than 30m views on Netflix in four days.

We werent told anything about trailers, and then, all of a sudden, my animations would end up in one. Itd be like: There's one of my shots! I only found out once they were completely released, and we were all watching it. He says this level of secrecy is baked into the studios DNA. They try to instill in all their employees that you don't say anything anywhere. If you look up most of the people at Rockstar, they don't have any social media presence because they're scared to. I was. When I worked there, I didn't say anything ever.

Across the industry, how does the decision-making play out for this type of media content? You don't want to spoil it or give too much away. You want to hint and leave things to the imagination, get people to want to find out what the story is. But things are changing. More and more studios and companies
are releasing big deep dives, reveals, and whole chunks of gameplay. We're getting to see a lot of stuff that we never used to back in the day. Face off (Image credit: Rcokstar Games) York was impressed by many components of Rockstars mega preview, in particular the visual clarity, use of lighting,
and the lifelike physics deployed in specific graphical elements, such as the movement of individual characters hair.

However, he also admits being disappointed by some of the rough facial animations. He explains: It doesn't seem like they're using MetaHuman capture technology. It looks like they're still doing it the old-school way, like in GTA 5 . It's very similar to that. That might be because of the limitations and what's important.

Ive worked with Unreal Engine 5. The high-fidelity facial animation has hundreds of bones in the face. When you add those to the character, it slows everything down. This is the type of stuff you put in cutscenes for The Last of Us Part 2 , for example. You want it to look super realistic. On GTA 4 , they're not doing that. Everything they show is in-game footage. It's the cinematic version of the character, which still needs to be low-resolution enough so it can do all these things without bogging down the rest of the game.

York pinpoints other features citing the weapon wheel and mini map that
also look a bit outdated and weird. The whole UI doesn't really match the style of game and what we're used to, he comments. Rockstar has a big and
very talented team. If they wanted, they could go in and change those
elements before a final release. Will they do that? That's another question because theres probably a lot of other stuff they're sweating about. (Image credit: Rockstar Games) That said, he praises the overarching LOD (Level of Detail), suggesting that to date only the CD Projekt Red team behind the once maligned but now widely celebrated Cyberpunk 2077 has been able to match it. There are levels to this shit, he states. Rockstar are the kings of that.

Despite any minor quibbles, the Extended Look has reassured York who runs York Street Gaming on YouTube that GTA 6 will set a new high bar stretching years into the future. People will still say it's one of the best games of
all time, he says. It will perform really well and become something we'll be able to play for a decade later like GTA 5 . Online will come out and
probably be an ever-evolving metaverse which will carry the franchise
forever.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S on November 19, 2026. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as
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