Tag: gta 6

Ananta: Anime GTA?

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We’re getting anime GTA before GTA 6!

If it releases before GTA 6 does (and some outlets seem to suggest this as the case), the opening joke will become more prophetic than I meant it to. Anime and the Grand Theft Auto series aren’t too things that always mix themselves, but talking to any gamer or anime fan, you may find that they’re the same people. One of them is writing this blog right now! Matter of fact, GTA Online has a few cars that can be customized with anime liveries. You can have your very own Itasha of the GTA anime parody Princess Robot Bubblegum.

For some reason, I was more embarrassed of this than I was of High School DxD, and that series proudly shows boobs and ass in nearly every scene!

But to get away from a parody of an East Asian medium present in a game developed by Northern Englishmen and Scots, let’s go to an upcoming game whose development team is in East Asia and is drawing comparisons to a game developed by Northern Brits.

Announced in August 2023 under the working title Project Mugen, Ananta is described as a fantasy urban RPG open-world, not dissimilar from Zenless Zone Zero but with much more to do gameplay-wise. Driving, city exploration, minigames, and Spider-Man’s wrists.

Not much is known about the plot as of writing, but the associated Wikipedia page (which will definitely be updated post-release and interviews) explains that its protagonists are paranormal investigators with some kind of extrasensory perception (ESP). These abilities are being used to fight against the main antagonistic force known as Chaos.

Channel: Mugen Official

I haven’t the slightest idea who specifically asked for this, but I want to buy them a present. A six-foot tall cake with a stripper or porn star of their choosing.

It’ll be hard to see this as a gacha game with how it looks and what it’s supposed to have, being an amalgamation of GTA, Honkai: Star Rail, Spider-Man for PS4, and Zenless Zone Zero, with a dash of Mob Psycho 100. Write what you know, learn more so you can know more, write even more. It’s also worth making the distinction between the devs of this game and Mihoyo. They’re another Chinese company based in Hangzhou called Naked Rain. Due to the whales that coalesce around paid DLC and many gacha games, they most likely do have the capacity and resources to make a game like this, but they’re not. ZZZ comes close and it’s still not a 1 to 1.

Ananta’s trailer seems to promise the ability to drive around the city, or, according to the Wikipedia, cities with planned updates. A game with multiple cities. It might be due to the resources needed to include multiple cities, but I would love it if more games had more maps to explore without locking it behind an expansion pack, DLC, or any other paywall. Even a loading screen would be serviceable, to me at least. It’s what made Midnight Club 3 and the old Need for Speed games so memorable and exciting.

Also, I have to circle back to GTA for a rant. Liberty City, Vice City, Los Santos: the big three stand-ins for NYC, Miami, and Los Angeles and victims of the RockStar game design of “take well-known big city and make it an island.” There’s a few theories floating around that the reason for this is a great big satire on the old “self-absorbed Americans live in their own world” stereotype and to be honest, I’d say the joke is quite old. It may have worked before, but with GTA: San Andreas having stand-ins for Vegas and Frisco as Las Venturas and San Fierro respectively as well as an area that can be viewed as the rural part of NorCal, there’s evidence from RockStar that they can and could (read: should) make a multi-city game. Or frankenstein their three cities together. Multiple fan artists have done it in the years since.

Source: sengin*

* The source for that map is hard to find seeing as it’s nearly 10 years old. Nevertheless, we have a good base, even if conceptual in design. There was also Ubisoft’s The Crew which had a truncated map of the lower 48, and most MMORPGs to go off of for a true open-world GTA-esque game. Come on, RockStar, give us what we really want.

Sorry, back on topic. Ananta is available for pre-registration so you can be among the first get it once it’s available. And you can bet you’re bottom dollar, I’ve already pre-registered and I’ll definitely be one of the first to play it as soon as I acquire the yottabytes necessary to house them all. Maybe I should make a rant of modern gaming, there’s enough material online for me to use as examples… as well as anecdotes and memes of people moving files around for storage; a story I know all too well.

It’s easy to say that I’m excited for Ananta and want it to succeed. That kind of goes without saying, gacha games are plenty successful as shown by Mihoyo’s output and I don’t just mean the whales funding it better than any Wall Street investor. But I’m going to take a page from the Det. Cole Phelps Institute and match that excitement with some skepticism. No assumptions, wait for more trailers and information to be revealed, look into some theories, and most importantly, prioritize the facts. To quote the God of War:

  1. Expect the worst;
  2. Assume nothing, and;
  3. Always anticipate [danger]

Credit: alexloai64

A series of great quotes to follow, not just in a hack-n-slash god-pulverizing simulator, and something I’ll keep in mind whilst eagerly awaiting more updates on Ananta/Mugen.

GTA VI Launch Trailer Arrives Early

TiberiusLeave a comment

A really long time coming

Citizens of the internet will know that fake trailers make the rounds several years or so after a popular franchise entry is on the market. I recall looking at fake videos of what GTA V would look like shortly after announcement in the middle of 2012. Me and my friends were hyped for the latter half of that year and 2013 waiting for the game to come out and when it did, in a nutshell it broke records back to back.

A few weeks after initial release, GTA Online debuted and despite an initial hiccup for those who were there (I was one of them), Online alone probably counted for lifetime revenue for the game. The most expensive piece of media in history made back all of its money and then some. If Rockstar was feeling philanthropic, every employee could probably retire and have enough savings for their descendants.

Over the years, critics have popped up questioning Rockstar’s design philosophy and direction. GTA V was said to have a DLC that was functionally stolen by GTA Online, which has enough DLC on its own to be released as a standalone semi-RPG (an idea that Rockstar could capitalize on if done more honestly), and even after the release of the phenomenally made, if overdone Red Dead Redemption 2, players often defaulted to GTA. Answering to the money (read: gold) found in the criminal funhouse that GTA Online was and still is, Red Dead Online suffered as a result and some haven’t forgiven Rockstar for it.

Nevertheless, Rockstar’s reputation as a more patient company has paid off. Gone are the days where they were a small team of British programmers asset flipping successful titles with only a year in difference. Projects have gotten bigger and bigger since at least 2007 coming to fruition with the following year’s GTA IV.

I think I have a theory on why the games have taken a more contemporary approach as opposed to the older unnumbered titles like Vice City or Liberty City Stories, and that theory starts with “it’s easier to capture what is than thumb through records looking at what was.” Maybe there’ll come a day when I elaborate further, but today we’re talking about a very long, very awaited installment in the GTA franchise.

On December 1, Rockstar announced the trailer would release on December 5, at 9:00 AM but the full trailer was leaked 15 hours ahead of schedule, racking up a record breaking view-count in minutes.

Channel: Rockstar Games

The internet has been demanding a follow-up to GTA V for a number of reasons, the most popular of them being criticism over the gluttonous mass that is GTA Online. I can’t say with certainty if these are the same people who default to GTA Online, but if there is some of that overlap, then it’s true what they say about a view from a glasshouse.

So following up on GTAs IV and V, GTA VI is yet another entry into the contemporary setting of modern-day Miami/South Florida. After looking myself, commenters who are from or have been to Florida have applauded the downright authentic portrayal of life as a Florida man or woman. Exploration of the Everglades and Keys, run ins with alligators, regular folks putting bizarre twists on normal activities and other easter eggs to the unpredictable nature of Florida man. Here’s a fun game you can play: google your birthday and put Florida man in and see what comes up.

Unlike the portrayal of South Florida from Vice City, where it takes home the allegations of a copy of 1983’s Scarface with a few references to Miami Vice, this time the game incorporates pretty much any given report on life in Florida. Much of the in-game footage captured seems to be recorded on Rockstar’s as of yet released parody of TikTok. Allow me to repeat a similar soundbite when I say that the graphics have never looked so amazing. YongYea recorded a video on this the previous night speaking similarly about the graphics and there’s no hyperbole when I say that minor things like hair and clothing affected by the wind, or facial rendering right down to the muscles, or even the local wildlife all come alive in just the trailer.

As for the plot, I’m personally saving my viewing eyes for later trailers to follow in 2024 and ’25, but from what we’ve heard and seen, it’s heavily inspired by the 1930s outlaw pairing of Bonnie and Clyde.

Also a first for GTA is a female protagonist. Rather than make your own in Online (as I have), the female lead is named Lucia and the male lead is named Jason. Plot details are obviously scarce and I intend to keep myself surprised until release even though select details have leaked yonks ago. From what I can gather from the trailer, it begins not dissimilar from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean.

Think about it: young Florida woman begins in the prison system; Lucia herself most likely dodging worse versions of what Jolyne was forced to share a detention complex with during her own incarceration; a boyfriend with an equally sketchy history… and again without anymore information from that, I can’t say where else the story goes, but it clearly doesn’t take place in a prison, though the prison is likely to play a role in the story in some capacity. By the way, the initial comparisons weren’t lost on the JoJo community.

Credit: u/klydex210, r/ShitPostCrusaders

I honestly thought, as did others, that the release window would be, say, Q4 2024, but the trailer ends with a vague 2025 release window. As of writing this, in-depth analyses of the trailer are releasing on YouTube and more will follow with more trailers in 2024. All that time cooking up a five-course meal, so many people have been waiting for the main dish and it looks like whatever trailers are releasing next year and after until release will hold us all over as appetizers. I’m excited, but all throughout this post, I’ve been keeping a level and realistic outlook on this. As exciting as this reveal trailer was, I’ve learned from past mistakes and disappointments to wait for as much information to be made available. Remember Kratos’s words:

Credit: u/Shaho99, r/GodofWar

Open your mind to the possibilities and all that. Now have some analysis videos to hold you over until the next trailer.

Channel: WatchMojo.com

You’ll have to watch this one on YouTube itself.

Channel: TheProfessional
Channel: YongYea