One of Rockstar’s narrative leads says that GTA 6‘s Vice City setting is the ideal place to check in on a popular recurring theme within Grand Theft Auto: T he American Dream.
Rockstar has made its approach to real-world influences quite clear of late. The team behind GTA 6 will comment on wider trends that won’t go out of date when the game ships, which is also why more specific events or people prove riskier.
One topic that Rockstar’s senior vice president of narrative name-checked, though, is the American Dream and how it looks and feels today compared to years gone by.
“Some would say the American Dream collapsed a long time ago,” Humphries tells Love Magazine in its latest edition, now on sale. “With GTA 4 we told an immigrant’s story that was supposed to be a kind of hollow commentary on the illusion of America as a land of opportunity, and then we sort of doubled down on that with the cynicism of GTA 5.”
Considering that GTA 5 released in 2013, where does that leave us as we near the end of 2026? For Humphries, the dream is diluted into something less grand, yet it still remains out of reach for many.
“Maybe the American Dream is more modest now,” he muses. “It’s a house for your family and your loans are paid off instead of wild success – but maybe today, that is just as out of reach for the average person.
“Miami and Southern Florida are a particular front line for this battle between astronomical wealth and unbounded ambition, creating a pressure cooker for all kinds of insanity.”
It’s easy to see what might be shaping Humphries’ thinking. The cost of living is rising while keeping employment feels shaky. You can see this in the gaming industry itself, where layoffs remain rampant as the cost of developing games continues to surge.
A misplaced sense of optimism that the spending highs of COVID-19 certainly didn’t get this off to a good start, though a willingness to spend has further dwindled thanks to the likes of AI and tariffs making most things you come across costlier than ever. And no doubt, the pinch is being felt in the US.
So yeah, to Humphries’ point, I suppose being a homeowner with little debt to worry about does feel like a dream right now.