Grand Theft Auto 6 is making some big changes to the classic GTA formula. Getting away from the police is more challenging, combat is more thrilling, and the narrative seems more grown-up and mature. But perhaps the biggest tweak in GTA 6 is that, for the first time in the nearly 30-year-old franchise named after the crime of stealing a car, it will actually be tricky and interesting to hijack new vehicles.
After the big GTA 6 trailer went live on Netflix yesterday, we also saw multiple previews from websites and content creators who got to check out the game last month and talk to Rockstar about it. And something that came up in nearly every preview was the fact that Rockstar has spent a lot of time and effort expanding and evolving the act of stealing cars. In past GTA games, you’d just walk up to a parked car, hit a button, and hop in. Maybe your character would have to break the window to unlock it. But that was it. Stealing cars in GTA 6 ain’t that simple.
“We have put some layers of stratification into the vehicles,” Rob Nelson, the head of development at Rockstar North, told IGN.
“Previously, you could just press triangle to automatically hotwire and steal any vehicle that you wanted and take off. We felt like that left a lot of potential gameplay on the table in terms of progression and decision-making for players. So now, you start off the game, and there are certain parked cars that are not accessible to you until you get a bit further along with the story and you acquire certain tools to get into them.”
This was a point Nelson brought up while talking to GTA YouTuber The Gaming Gorilla, explaining that you’ll need different tools depending on the car you are trying to steal. For example, as seen in the gameplay trailer on Thursday, Jason and Lucia can use a “Slim Jim” tool to pop open the lock of a car and steal it. But this only works on older vehicles. And even if you just break the window on a newer car to unlock it, you might not be able to even hotwire it and drive away.
“You don’t need anything to hotwire,” Nelson told TGG. “But not all vehicles can be hotwired. Some vehicles need a key cloner to start. You can smash the window and get in, but you can’t start it without the key cloner.”
Of course, this is still GTA, so Nelson made it clear that even early on, players can run up to fancy cars while they are stopped at a light or sign and yank the driver out and take the vehicle, no key cloner or tool needed. But the car might still have a tracker in it, which could be used by police to locate you. So you’ll still have to deal with that problem. And stolen cars aren’t yours right away. You will need to make regsiter them and store them in a garage with limited space to make them a personal vehicle you can keep. Otherwise they’ll vanish when you reboot the game.
In a different preview posted by IGN, Nelson explained that players will have access to an in-game phone app, named Waink, that will let you scan a car to learn more about it.
“For example, [Waink] tells me this car is locked, it’s got an alarm, and has no tracker,” explained Nelson while playing the game for IGN. “It also tells me how much it’s worth if I go to take it to a Pay n’ Spray or a specialty car fence, and how much it would cost for me to register it for myself. So, for example, this car needs a key cloner. This other car will just need a Slim Jim. So we’ve added a lot of fun little tools you need or mechanics you need to perform these formerly binary actions.”
“I think it gives all the vehicles more meaning, and you need to pay attention to what you’re doing a bit more,” added Nelson.
And I have to agree. It has always been odd that Grand Theft Auto, a series named after stealing cars, never really made it fun or exciting or interesting to steal them. It was just, as Nelson explained, a “binary action.” You hit the button, an animation played, and then you had the car. In GTA 6, however, stealing cars sounds like something that will take planning and skill. Maybe a really old, beat-up piece of shit will be easy to hijack. But nicer cars will involve more steps, and pulling off a successful hijack of a badass supercar is going to be so much more rewarding in GTA 6 than it ever has been in past games in the series.
I can’t wait to screw up stealing a car and getting a dozen cop cars chasing me when Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives on November 19 on PS5 and Xbox.