The titular Grand Theft Auto hasn't gone missing in GTA 6, but Rockstar aims to bring more nuance to the carjacking gameplay this time around.
In the GTA 6 extended look, we see Jason given a couple of options for how to break into a parked sports car. Walking up to the door, two button prompts appear on screen: you can either tap circle to smash the window and bust in just like in older GTA titles, or you can hit triangle to employ a slim jim and get in more quietly. The latter option involves a very brief minigame with the right stick.
It sounds like the slim jim won't be the only piece of carjacking equipment you'll pick up over the course of the game, either. "We have put some layers of stratification into the vehicles,” Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson tells IGN. “Previously, you could just press triangle to automatically hotwire and steal any vehicle that you wanted and take off. We felt like that left a lot of potential gameplay on the table in terms of progression and decision-making for players."
As Nelson explains, "you start off the game and there are certain parked cars that are not accessible to you until you get a bit further along with the story and you acquire certain tools to get into them."
That's a substantial departure from previous GTA games, where you were more or less free to jack any vehicle you come across the instant you see it, whether it's an old beater or an exotic performance car. Of course, you do have one recourse to grab those high-end GTA 6 cars from the start of the game: just find somebody already driving one. "You can always carjack any driver you see," Nelson says.
There's also now a phone app that gives you additional details on cars you may want to steal. "For example, it tells me this car is locked, it's got an alarm, and has no tracker," Nelson says. "It also tells me how much it’s worth if I go to take it to a Pay n' Spray or a specialty car fence, and how much it would cost for me to register it for myself. So, for example, this car needs a key cloner. This other car will just need a Slim Jim. So we've added a lot of fun little tools you need or mechanics you need to perform these formerly binary actions."
Here's everything you need to know about all the GTA 6 versions out there.
