I think I know why Rockstar Games debuted its “extended look” of Grand Theft Auto VI on Netflix instead of immediately dropping it for free on YouTube. Unlike most video game trailers, the almost 27-minute preview of GTA VI felt more like a slice of a prestige crime drama than any video game trailer that I’ve ever seen. To make a new game that lasts another decade or more and potentially rivals the success of its predecessor, Rockstar is clearly trying to further blur the lines between Hollywood and video games.
The line between games and movies has been getting consistently fuzzier. Look no further than this year’s James Bond game, 007 First Light, which has the snappy pacing, acting, and cinematography of a great action film. And TV shows and movies are increasingly pulling from video games for inspiration, to say nothing of entire TV and movie franchises being built around successful video games. Now, a video game trailer has wedged between prestige TV and streaming hit movies — after watching the GTA VI preview, Netflix is suggesting I watch Breaking Bad next.
Rockstar is keeping GTA VI’s plot details close to its chest, but the video gives the broad strokes: GTA VI is about protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos working together in Vice City. Across the tightly-edited video, which jumps between cutscenes and moments of actual gameplay, Jason and Lucia do a lot of GTA-style crimes: they evade cops in gunfights, pull off high-stakes robberies, and shoot a lot of people. But they also have moments of chatting leisurely in the car or even bickering about what clothes to wear.
The video also isn’t just an uninterrupted vertical section of gameplay, like video game deep dives often are. Instead, it artistically cuts between different sections, storylines, and characters to paint a picture of what to expect. I didn’t always know what was going on, but by the end of the video, I had a sense of who these people were and the city that they live in. It felt, well, like parts of a movie.
GTA VI will still be very much a video game. Rockstar invited a handful of outlets to preview GTA VI, and their coverage dives into things like the expansive map, the six-star Wanted system, escalating requirements to steal cars, and reactive NPCs. Those will almost certainly make for a vast sandbox to play in, building on the already immersive worlds of previous Rockstar games like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. For GTA VI’s extended look, Rockstar instead opted to show setup, action, and dialogue scenes, leaning on story and atmosphere over gameplay mechanics. It’s a cinematic choice.
Maybe I’m thinking too deeply about a video game trailer. Yes, I know that part of this Netflix video is all just marketing hype — and Netflix probably saw it as a way to get new subscribers. And the trailer isn’t only available on Netflix; Rockstar let creators share reaction videos and is publishing the extended look on its YouTube channel and its own website at 9PM ET.
But expectations are high for GTA VI. 13-year-old GTA V has sold more than 230 million copies, making it one of the top-selling games of all time. Rockstar’s previous two trailers for GTA VI have racked up hundreds of millions of views. GTA Online is a big cash cow in its own right, too. But Rockstar can always do more with a game many years in the making that might be fighting for time with the Netflix library. If Thursday’s preview was any indication, all those titles might get real competition when GTA VI launches on November 19th.