New games launch every week, but the period leading up to a GTA game is always something special, isn’t it? Wild rumors always spark up, and most are actually worth talking about, if you can sift past the star-chart readings and phases of the moon.
There’s one speculative rumor, however, that I brushed off almost immediately because it is, of course, nonsense. The rumor? Lucia will die at the end of GTA VI.
Naturally, the ending of GTA VI will only be known to a very select few humans on earth right now, and I’m willing to bet none of them will want to spoil the game for us, because it’s their baby.
But I can pretty confidently say that I don’t think Lucia will die in the end. Here’s my reasoning.
GTA, by its very nature, is pro-player choice
The first GTA games were literally just open worlds in which to cause a bunch of chaos, and that’s a large part of what made them so appealing. You, the player, got to decide what to do. Whether that be phonebook missions, killing sprees, or simply testing how quickly you can blow up a ride.
It’s all about player choice. So when the 3D era came along, GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas followed a very similar route. There was a linear story to follow, or you could just ignore it and go cause some chaos instead.
The stories themselves were on rails in those days, but gaming was evolving.
So when GTA IV came around, we could actually have detailed worlds and complex stories, all mashed into one game. And it’s in that game where we got our first real taste of player freedom within the story structures.
Spoilers ahead.
During the final mission of GTA IV, you’re forced to choose between a beloved (albeit a bit foolish) family member and your core love interest. The choice wasn’t laid out quite so plainly, but the end result was the same: lose one or the other.
There’s another mission in GTA IV with a significant choice, but for the sake of brevity, let’s skip ahead to GTA V. And you probably already know where this is going. More major spoilers ahead.
As Franklin, at the end of GTA V, you get to choose whether you want to kill Trevor, Michael, or neither one. In other words, this is an upgrade on GTA IV‘s version, where there was no true happy ending (unless you hated Roman or Kate). But GTA V changed that.
If you haven’t played Red Dead Redemption 2 yet, skip the next paragraph.
Then again, in RDR2, Arthur Morgan is doomed from the moment he expels that first cough. You can’t save him, and his death is terribly emotional. But John (thanks, Old Man Seven) continues on, and essentially gets the “happy ending” he kind of deserved, after dealing with Dutch and Micah once and for all.
So, if we’re talking about the GTA universe alone, the last couple of entries have focused even more on player choice during the campaigns. If we bring RDR2 into the mix, I become worried again.
The GTA VI ending we don’t deserve, but need
I like a good, happy ending to my games. But you can’t deny there’s a certain bittersweet tone to a main character’s death—especially if we’re allowed to go get revenge afterwards.
Given the emphasis on player choice over the last two mainline GTA games, especially for those big, dramatic moments, we’ll probably get a say, once again, over who dies in our playthrough. Because, I mean, it’s a GTA game; of course someone will die.
Will we be forced to choose between Lucia and Jason? Or will we, as Jason, have to choose between Lucia and our potential father figure, Brian? Maybe we’ll even have to choose between two other characters, like Raul or Dre’quan. Maybe we’ll even get an all-happy ending like in GTA V.
It’s all speculation at this point, but I feel confident that we won’t be forced to watch Lucia or Jason die if we don’t want to. Unless, of course, Rockstar pulls an RDR2 on us, in which case I will happily eat my words while choking back a tear for Lucia (or Jason).
What do you think? Let me know in the comments, and let’s keep the hopium alive a little longer while we all wait impatiently for the mythical Trailer 3.
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