Should the next GTA be more serious?

[UAL]

One of the things I didn't like about GTA V was that it went over the top with the whole humour/trying to be funny thing. Like every other character was intended to be funny (Lamar, Nervous Ron, Trevor, Wade, Chinese guy in the desert, Franklins aunt, Simeon, Devin Weston, Michaels family, the cartel guy Madrazzo and pretty much all the stranger and freaks characters).

 

Don't get me wrong I know GTA games have always had the funny/satirical thing going on but GTA V was WAY over the top with this. I wanna see them go back to a more serious tone (like Red Dead Redemption) and stop trying to be overly funny. One of the reasons why GTA 3 is my favourite GTA game was because most of the humour was done through in game advertisements, NPC comments and on the radio stations. The actual characters were all pretty serious bar 2 or 3.

 

I also think it will be better for the story to make it more serious. Look at RDR, it's story was a thousand times better than V's because the majority of the characters were serious and not intended to TRY and make people laugh every mission.

Edited April 20, 2016 by UAL

[Misunderstood]

Look, GTA can be whatever the f*ck it wants to be tone-wise. They've done great with serious games (GTA IV, RDR, MP3) and have done great with wacky, less serious titles (GTA SA, VC). I could give a rat's ass what they do, all I want is good writing, good characters and good storytelling. You don't have to be serious to do that.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Misunderstood

[zuckmeslow]

Look, GTA can be whatever the f*ck it wants to be tone-wise. They've done great with serious games (GTA IV, RDR, MP3) and have done great with wacky, less serious titles (GTA SA, VC). I could give a rat's ass what they do, all I want is good writing, good characters and good storytelling. You don't have to be serious to do that.

exactly. Red Dead Redemption had many wacky missions and characters, but it was such a well written game that it never felt cartoony. GTA IV had alot of crazy characters and hilarious missions, but it also had good writting. GTA V had wacky characters and crazy over the top missions but the writting was so poor and the character development was so rushed that you are not gripped by the story. it always needs to be well written, trim the fat, get rid of characters that dont do anything and add more to the characters that are essential. Anybody remember tanisha? or what about madrazo? they are two characters that just walked in, and walked out. Any other gta game would have developed them more, and what kind of game builds up a man to be the main antagonist, the one who sets everything in motion and just have him in a couple of missions and never appear again.

Edited April 20, 2016 by zuckmeslow

[UAL]

The tone does matter. The humour in GTA was too much. To the point where I couldn't take it seriously, like Saints Row.

 

Seemed like it was aimed at teenage gamers who are easily amused by childish sexual humour and over the top characters, kinda like a lot of people on this forum.

Edited April 20, 2016 by UAL

[Gtaman_92]

Don't matter to me.

[IntellectualCougarCub]

I loved V's tone.

[GTA_stu]

A lot of people think IV was a bit boring, and I agree with them. But not because the story or the tone was too serious. I think that was spot on. It was boring because there was f*ck all to do apart from missions and there was little variety. I'd like to see something closer to IV's tone, but with more things to do like in V. I'd definitely enjoy a more serious gritty down to Earth story. V's was a bit all over the place. VC and IV have had the best stories and overall tones imo.

[theGTAking101]

V went way overboard with trying to be funny. Some of the jokes were actually pretty funny, but there were too many of them. I appreciated the jokes more in IV because there were less of them.

 

So yeah, I want it to be serious again, I feel I can connect with the characters better.

[UAL]

V went way overboard with trying to be funny. Some of the jokes were actually pretty funny, but there were too many of them. I appreciated the jokes more in IV because there were less of them.

 

So yeah, I want it to be serious again, I feel I can connect with the characters better.

 

Basically what I'm saying. Guess it just comes down to what you like. I just prefer games with a more serious tone, especially games like GTA.

[Sir Michael]

GTA isn't a series that should take itself too seriously, but it also shouldn't try too hard with being funny again... I want to see seriousness with a grounded form of humor that we've seen in series' past. Even though San Andreas had a meh story and crazy missions, it had some of the best written characters in the series; Toreno, Truth, Tenpenny, just to name a few. Characters like those, Toreno especially, added quite a bit of humor to very serious situations that I enjoyed. I'd like to see more of that in the next GTA.

[FilipCRO]

GTA V was too satiric and casualized when compared to GTA IV. I would like a bit more serious tone in the next GTA, but not too serious.

[combustion]

The next GTA should be serious, but a non-realistic and light story like V's and SA's are more popular in the targeted audience. A GTA game with unrealistic feature sells well than a GTA which focuses on realism. It is possible to write a serious story which retains all the fun gameplay elements and spaces for military bases, aircraft carriers, planes etc., but as Rockstar's writers have displayed earlier, they can't. So, the next GTA won't have a serious story.

[Pedinhuh]

I want something serious as IV with it's silly but downright dangerous tone of III.

[thafablifee46]

From the radio to the humor to some of the characters, they should have toned that down

[Journey_95]

I would like it if it was mature and serious like GTA IV again but thats not going to happen soo at least I would like something like VC.

 

Not really a "heavy" game but still has a solid storyline and good characters. And even though SA's storyline became a trainwreck the characters were still great throughout the game.

 

Both don't go all obnoxious and crazy for the sake of it like TBOGT and GTA V. I hope they get rid of that particular "style".

Edited April 21, 2016 by Journey_95

[Official General]

I agree that a very good GTA game does not need to be too focused on having a more serious tone to it. As long as the game has an interesting and intriguing story/characters, good writing, and great gameplay/content/features, and not too much over the top silliness, then I'm happy and contented.

 

However, being a game that's supposed to be mostly grounded in realism and mainly based on criminal activities for financial gain, I'd rather GTA games have a more serious, dark tone to them, rather than an overtly wacky, comical and humorous one. And by dark tone, I don't mean colour palette or effect, I mean as in the theme, the plot, twists, dialogue, etc. The business of crime is generally never a glamorous or bright, colourful affair, and I'd rather GTA reflected this more. That's one of the main problems I had with V's overall feel, there was not enough of that serious business of crime feeling, it just felt like it wasn't taking itself too seriously and was more concerned with trying very hard to make people laugh with tacky parodies and satire, and cheap, shock value humour.

 

I'd rather the main story be more serious, and some of the side missions and bits of content more lean towards the comical and humorous stuff. I'd say 80 percent serious and 20 percent not really serious.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Official General

[Maibatsu545]

I don't mind a game that's not 100% serious and dour, we already had that with GTAIV. A little levity is fine. But they need to tone down the "brilliant" cultural satire. We get it, Los Santos is filled with vapid celebrities and superficial people. I've never heard that observation made about LA before GTAV's groundbreaking satire told me people in Hollywood are fake. Besides, R* doesn't really have a leg to stand on in regards to criticizing the mainstream, considering they ARE the mainstream (and a greedy billion dollar corporation just like the ones they attempt to satirize).

 

Not to mention how hypocritical it all is. They try to roast Facebook constantly in the game for "stealing people's data" and yet when you press pause there's an option to upload your GTAV data to Facebook right in the menu with the logo and everything. They need to tone that sh*t down because it's not funny anymore, especially coming from them of all companies.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Maibatsu545

[ClaudeSpeed1911]

I don't mind a game that's not 100% serious and dour, we already had that with GTAIV. A little levity is fine. But they need to tone down the "brilliant" cultural satire. We get it, Los Santos is filled with vapid celebrities and superficial people. I've never heard that observation made about LA before GTAV's groundbreaking satire told me people in Hollywood are fake. Besides, R* doesn't really have a leg to stand on in regards to criticizing the mainstream, considering they ARE the mainstream (and a greedy billion dollar corporation just like the ones they attempt to satirize).

 

Not to mention how hypocritical it all is. They try to roast Facebook constantly in the game for "stealing people's data" and yet when you press pause there's an option to upload your GTAV data to Facebook right in the menu with the logo and everything. They need to tone that sh*t down because it's not funny anymore, especially coming from them of all companies.

This is the reason III era was better. It didn't have that much of satire yet had alot of funny stuff. It was fine in IV because it didn't spread to characters but in V it seems like even the characters are done just for the sake of satire.

Edited April 21, 2016 by ClaudeSpeed1911

[K-Bow]

Please...please, be at least a little more serious.

[Shadowfennekin]

I want it to be serious but not too serious.

[Guest Guest176525326]

I would like it if it was mature and serious like GTA IV again but thats not going to happen soo at least I would like something like VC.

 

Not really a "heavy" game but still has a solid storyline and good characters. And even though SA's storyline became a trainwreck the characters were still great throughout the game.

 

Both don't go all obnoxious and crazy for the sake of it like TBOGT and GTA V. I hope they get rid of that particular "style".

I disagree. TBOGT is an excellent game with great characters like Yusuf Amir

[RandompedestrianfromLC]

Yeas, it should be more serious. More down to earth and realistic, like IV and RDR.

I started to play rdr a week ago again, and I have to say, GTA haves a lot to learn from Red Dead Redemption.

[DarkSavageDeathlyCloud]

i think it shoud be like....a quentin tarantino movie/dark comedy crossover.

dark humor, over the top situations, yet....no childish humor or to much ridicule

[MCMXCII]

It most definitely should be. I mean, I like humor and I like seriousness but I would love it if the next GTA had a good balance between the two. To me, RDR did it right and that's how I would like for the future GTA's to be more like.

[Not A Nice Person]

I agree. V was childish which degraded it's story, not that it was quality in the first place but a more serious tone for the next game would help the series. They obviously pandered to the new mainstream fanbase.

[Tonguegirl]

I would like it to be gorier, most of the blood effects are paintball -style. I'm not sure how more complex effects would transfer to online though. There still needs to be humour, it wouldn't be GTA otherwise, but yeah, a more serious tone would be good to see.

 

A lot of the side missions in 5 really got on my nerves because the characters were just ridiculous.I know R* were trying their hardest to be satirical but they ended up just creating annoyance. Strangers and Freaks could have been so much better if the characters were a lot darker and twisted instead of just grubby little lowlifes

Edited April 25, 2016 by Tonguegirl

[Fuzzknuckles]

V was actually pretty serious for the most part. What we don't need is a "whacky zany psycho" like Trevor, sh*tting up the place and breaking the serious tone whenever he entered the room, like an uninvited gate crasher, who proceeded to repeatedly fart in your party guest's face.

 

Without Trevor being the way he was, V would have felt a lot more serious. Critiquing the locals and the atmosphere of the city has always been part of GTA, as evidenced way back in III's LC, with the constant cold remarks from... everyone and the tensions when driving through certain areas. This was the same in all games previous to V, but V just didn't quite hit the same level of success with its satire. I'd say IV failed at this too, for the most part.

 

Sadly, I think the reason for this is that Rockstar peaked too soon with their satire, in the III era games. And they've failed at recreating the high standards of their satire massively in the last two games - from the shop signage to the radio stations. None of it was as funny as it was in previous games.

 

I wonder, though, if it would have been funnier if we hadn't already experienced 10 glorious years of well-handled satire in the earlier installments.

[HaythamKenway]

I think they are just running dry. There's not much inventiveness, spark and genuine levity in V's satire. They just took the most generic, superficial understanding of Los Angeles and ran with it, without putting much thought in it or pushing it further. It's just cheap pot shots any random Joe could write.

 

I don't really know why. Maybe the writers don't like the city and its culture (a big difference from IV, which was, despite its snark, still a love letter to New York). Maybe they are so tired of the current pop culture and political climate in general and this is just their disgust shining through, that they couldn't even bother with saying anything beyond simple "everything is stupid and sucks". Maybe the problem is that while they wanted more pronounced satirical humor, their creativity can't really sustain work of this scale. We all have our limits, quality vs. quantity and all that.

 

I think the overabundance of the satirical commentary was really the culprit of V's problems with humor. When you look at something like TBoGT in comparison, that game is just as lighthearted as V (perhaps even more so). But it's mixed better. Satire complements character-driven situational humor, that isn't fueled by playing with stereotypes or making some greater point in terms of social commentary, there are moments of real, straightforward-played drama that isn't cheapened by a badly placed joke right afterwards and the problems the characters find themselves in have a real weight to them. V just slipped too much in the parody territory, to the detriment of everything else, but that doesn't necessarity mean that the lightheated tone as a whole is a problem.

[ASAP Marko]

GTA humour used to be funny because the story wouldn't be a part of the joke and the main characters wouldn't be a part of that joke, but the world would be. When you had puns like Cok-O-Pops and till clerks that say "Cluckidy cluck f*ck to you sir." and well written jokes that'll make you laugh like when CJ explained the condom getting stuck to his face when he went swimming to WuZi. Instead, in 5, it kinda went to f*ck. Like a teenager with acne who MLG pop shots people in his bedroom and lives in the suburbs helped script the characters, as they are pretty generic and mundane. A middle aged white male with cheating wife and family? Check. A black guy from the hood, whose tryna see better days? Check. And a crackhead lunatic to balance out how boring the family man is? Check. The jokes weren't witty or well placed and it felt over the top, the game felt like a satire of itself rather than satire in its own right.

[kraftwerkd]

I'd love to see a return to a IV/MP3-style story. Gritty, serious, but with the right hints of humour. Like a good gangster movie. It really all depends on the location however, if they do an HD Vice City, I feel like an over-the-top approach like V would ruin the game, but at the same time dark and gritty wouldn't work either. So, like I said, I think it depends on the setting of the game. That's always the first part of the development of a GTA game, is getting the location down and building the map.

 

One thing I have some criticism of is a more fluid storytelling/exploration experience. The story and exploration of the map during missions felt a little forced sometime, but let's be honest, this is kind of the first time we've seen that from a GTA game. It was very apparent during some missions that they were intentionally showing you a part of the map, like they were "showing off" their creation. Which I loved, but I think it just needs to feel a little more fluid next time.. whatever that means.

 

One more point, I think the reason why V had such an over-the-top story is because LA is portrayed as incredibly "over-the-top" in reality. I'm not that LA itself is over-the-top, but the way some people speak about it and the way some media portrays it is.