6. A Truly Great Story
If there's one major area that's lacking in GTA, it's the narrative. IV elected to tell a more meaningful tale with immigrant Niko's take on the American Dream, assumedly giving Rockstar the ability to see all the hypocrisies and in-your-face mediation of the good ol' USA through fresh, foreign eyes. However, they didn't really do anything with that outside of busting Roman's balls for lying about his own status, instead electing to let Niko slip back into the standard 'GTA killer' mould, despite him protesting the things in cutscenes he was just seen doing moments prior. It brought about the tongue-twisting term '
Ludonarrative dissonance', basically meaning when you have a character who appears to be portrayed one way through dialogue, cutscenes and presentation etc. - if you then go against that in gameplay or what you're able to do yourself as through player control - it creates a major disconnect. This was addressed in GTA V with Trevor, as Rockstar seemingly threw their hands up and said "We don't know how to make this work!", instead just letting you run wild with Mr. Philips as such befitted his character, whilst 'role playing' the others into some modicum of believability as their wayward morals allowed. Still, it just doesn't connect. You don't
care that Michael's having family troubles, Franklin's struggling with his place in the world or Trevor's... got mummy issues. Unlike how incredible moments like Red Dead's Mexico reveal or its ending were, they were all built firmly on empathy and character/world-building - things that are completely absent from GTA V.