The greatest gaming event of 2023 was the GTA 6 reveal trailer. I am still thinking about it now. Rockstar has mastered the art of making the gaming world pause for a few minutes to experience something lavish and mind-blowing. Their games encourage grandiose thinking. I want this new version of Vice City’s map to be the biggest in history, even though I’m currently exhausted of massive open-world games.
I’m attracted to an open-world sandbox for the chance to catch that fleeting and ephemeral feeling of immersion. GTA 6’s trailer delivered the real essence of immersion for me. If you ask me, a crucial part of immersion is the game’s power to remain in your consciousness even after you’ve put the controller down and turned off the TV, blurring the barrier between the fictitious and reality.
I spent hours in GTA 5 as the embodiment of Trevor Philips, Michael De Santa and Franklin Clinton. You know, just cruising around Los Santos listening to radio stations, earning money as a taxi driver, encountering hilarious random encounters or causing utter 5-star mayhem. This level of immersion pulled me through my screen into the world and narrative of GTA 5 like an early premonition of Alan Wake 2. I’ve been trying to grasp that fleeting sense of immersion ever since, only finding it when experiencing The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. I’m sure you have your own touchstones for this!
For me, believability is key for immersion – by which I mean the kind of believability you can find in games like The Witcher and Cyberpunk. These are fantasies and science fiction games, but I believe them because the worlds feel coherent when I’m inside them. It’s the mixture of a lot of elements, I suspect. The graphical fidelity, flawless hair physics and NPC diversity shown in the GTA 6 trailer illustrate the power of Rockstar to push the current generation of consoles to create believable experiences. This team clearly makes games by looking very closely at the real world and trying to capture its essences.