We only have a trailer forGrand Theft Auto VI, and it’s a teaser in reality. Not anything different fromRockstar’susual trailer pattern, it’ll only be a handful of months now before we get a trailer that explains the countless mechanics, but in terms of setting, story, and characters, we have all the hype we need.
But forget about all of that. I want to talk about that big fuck-off alligator strolling into a store like it’s ready to rob it of all its jerky.
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‘Gator Land
The first alligator we see is the one fished out of a pool during the pastiche of Instagram/Snapchat. Watching it again, there is at least one ‘gator in the swamp with the flamingos, but none of these gators got my mind racing, as I’m well aware they’re a big part of Florida’s wildlife. Fishing alligators out of pools is, I imagine, fairly common in that neck of the woods. They are, after all, apex predators who go wherever they want.
But not long after, we see security cam footage of a gator strutting into a convenience store like it owns this city. A few cylinders fired off inside of me after that, and suddenly my mind whirred with the patently ridiculous fantasy of being able to play as a ‘gator in GTA 6.
It wouldn’t be the first time Rockstar let us play as an animal, either…
Chop And Friends
Exhibit A is the GTA V mission, “Chop”. For a short segment of the game, we had the option to switch over to Chop the dog’s perspective. I replayed that mission for research and found myself surprised at how limited it ended up being. You don’t actually control Chop much at all, maybe not evenat all.It sort of just seems like a glorified first-person camera for a couple of minutes.
But, Rockstar are some of the most talented and obsessive in the business. They seemed to realize that playable animals are the kind of thing you sell a game with, and my exhibit B is the update called The Rockstar Editor.
With this update came several peyote plants that Franklin, Trevor, and Michael could find in specific places and ‘nom for a fun hallucination session. Our psychonaut boys would imagine themselves turning into animals, from ones as lame as a domestic cat to as awesome as a mountain lion. You could also swim through the ocean as a whale, shark, or more pathetic fishy, or soar through the air as several birds.
Once you’ve played as these animals, where you likely had fun for half a minute at most before instantly dying, you unlocked playing as that animal through Director Mode in the Editor! Except for the ocean critters, you don’t get to swim through Los Santos traffic sadly.
And I mean just look at this screenshot alone! Within the settings of the Editor, you can befully invincible. I picked the Los Santos airport for a quick tour of carnage for this screenshot, and it was pretty hard to remember I was supposed to be working…
It’s hard to express theutter joyof ripping through NPCs in Grand Theft Auto as a vicious predator? Imagine the catharsis you could have by playing as all those alligators that one-bite killed you in RDR 2? Finally,youget to patrol the swamps and chow down on the hapless humans.
Quite frankly, I had so much fun with the already existing version of the mechanic in GTA V, that I kind of feel it’d be a missed opportunity if we didn’t get at leastonemission as a ‘gator. Not just because Rockstar already showed they can code that, but even as just a satire of America like GTA is, it makes too much sense to give too much love to the meth ‘gators I have genuinely read about in news articles. I don’t live in Florida, but I’m well aware they exist.
We won’t know if playable animals will return in GTA VI just yet, but rest assured, I will be combing through every trailer from now on to see if it does (worst-case scenario: there’ll probably be the option to fool around as ‘gators in the Editor Mode).
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