Coming off the back of GTA IV, Rockstar had their 'new direction' for GTA (that of moral choices and weighty characters) thoroughly rejected by the general consensus. People didn't want mopey Niko and a grey n' brown city, they wanted violence, nihilism and explosions. They wanted that naughty, controversial game grandmothers daren't speak of, that experience that courted controversy but backed it up with solid gameplay and the hidden intention of simply holding up a black mirror to society. You could be your worst self in GTA, but you'd probably enjoy it, and therein lies pure genius. To that end, the now swimming-in-cash Rockstar designed a DIY torture scene for GTA V, where character Trevor attempts to extract information from a screaming 'terrorist', simply so someone with a gun has a better reason to use it on someone else. Trevor later tries to clarify his (and by definition, Rockstar's) stance on torture through a few throwaway lines of dialogue surrounding how "torture's for the torturer useless as a means of getting information", but it falls flat, considering the character doesn't have any moral standing, and whose entire appeal is being as ridiculous as possible. He positively revels in doing the worst things to his victim, and as there's no way to get out of the scene (Rockstar said if you don't want to play, turn the game off) it completely fails to truly mean anything, outside of trying to generating headlines for the sake of being something GTA is 'supposed to do'. Which supposedly mature moments in games were terribly handled despite even the best intentions? Let us know in the comments!
