GTA 6 protagonist Jason might be a former army man, but the game’s narrative lead insists that doesn’t mean Rockstar was trying to make “a statement” with his backstory.
Rockstar previously introduced Jason as a man who “grew up around grifters and crooks” and spent “a stint in the Army trying to shake off his troubled teens” before returning to “doing what he knows best, working for local drug runners.” Then, of course, he meets fellow GTA 6 protagonist Lucia, which “could be the best or worst thing to ever happen to him” – a slightly ominous descriptor we’ll have to wait and see the outcome of next month.
Concerns for Jason and Lucia’s happy ending aside, during a new interview with Love magazine, Rupert Humphries, GTA 6’s senior vice president of narrative, is asked about Jason’s backstory. Specifically, could it be interpreted as a class story, considering his time in the army, and how consciously has Rockstar written failed social mobility as an aspect of his tale?
“We didn’t want to make any kind of statement with Jason’s backstory,” Humphries responds. “It needs to be understood that he takes the measures he does – drug trafficking and becoming a bank robber, etc. – because of his material circumstances. But a lot of this is up to the player to decide whether he needs to do that, or if it’s a choice he makes because he’s wired differently from other people.”
It’s a surprising response, largely because it seems to imply that Jason’s military background might not figure all that much in the narrative, though I suppose we’ll have to watch this space to see how it plays out, and how much the devs are hiding for spoiler purposes right now.
Rockstar obviously also hasn’t shied away from social commentary in the past, either. In fact, in this same interview, before being asked about Jason’s backstory, Humphries discusses the concept of the American Dream being a recurring theme in the GTA series, including in GTA 4 where “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.”