What women gamers want from Grand Theft Auto VI

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The latest version of the hugely popular video game franchise criticised for its violent misogyny has at least one addition to draw in new female fans.

Serena SolomonLifestyle journalist

30 October 2026

8 min read

Serena SolomonLifestyle journalist

30 October 2026

8 min read

Caption:Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, the two main characters in Grand Theft Auto VI who are partners in crime and love.Photo credit:Rockstar Games

​A lot has changed since the 2013 release of Grand Theft Auto V, the “thug life” fantasy where players can run over pedestrians, shoot police officers and kill sex workers after using their services.

This is the complicated cultural moment Grand Theft Auto VI will launch into on 19 November, 2026. This time, GTA VI has Lucia Caminos, the first female co-protagonist of the franchise’s modern, story-led era. She has the physique of Kim Kardashian and appears in the extended trailer to be on equal footing with her partner in love and crime, Jason Duval. It's caused some to accuse creator Rockstar Games of “going woke”.

​The hype surrounding the game is so big that employers are being warned that masses of staff might call in sick. A major driver of that hype is nostalgia, according to Ellie Harwood, who co-hosts the gaming podcast Extremely Casual Games.

​“I reckon we’re tapping into these people 13 years ago who would have been maybe [in their] early 20s or late teens.

​“I think a lot of the nostalgia is playing into it to the point that we’re seeing it through a lens of cultural movement nostalgia, and we’re kind of putting everything else to the side because it kind of takes us back to that mindset of being in 2013.”

​The average age of a gamer is 41, according to a 2025 global survey by the Entertainment Software Association. Today’s 41-year-old would have been around 28 when GTA V launched.

​Harwood isn’t a hardcore GTA player, partly due to the game's hyper-sexualised, misogynistic sidelining of women, but she has played it occasionally alongside her fiancé. He has pre-ordered the game (most people are buying the ultimate edition at $174.95) and she plans to give it a go. Harwood will be looking for how far the game has come in 13 years and after numerous launch delays.

​“I'm really interested to see what it's all about and how the mechanics work and what the story is like...”

​Besides a reputation for pushing boundaries, GTA is known for its pioneering open-world freedom where players can explore vast and detailed areas, with cities that resemble the likes of Los Angeles and New York. GTA VI brings added nostalgia with its return to Vice City, the namesake of the 2002 version that was modelled on Miami.

​Harwood quit gaming as a teenager, largely because of the lack of female characters in games, only to pick it up again years later. However, the addition of Lucia is unlikely to convert her into a GTA fan.

​“I don’t mind, but it’s again, of course there’s going to be some sort of [sexual] relationship there. Can’t we just all be friends, you know?

​“I think it's made me a little bit curious, but it hasn't necessarily fully converted me.”

Ally, a Twitch gamer known online as Meow Sparky, is a long-time GTA fan based in Palmerston North. She is drawn to the messy contradictions of a game that is the opposite of politically correct.

​"It's supposed to be quite shocking.”

​She hopes that extends to how Lucia’s character develops throughout the game.

​“I just hope - and I personally think they will - make her nuanced, complex, interesting.

​“...I want her to be as messed up and complex as the male characters have been in the previous games.

​“I think I kind of understand, I guess, if your partners are being neglectful and you see them putting an effort towards a character in the game.”

​Ally is anticipating the much-improved graphics of GTA VI and what that will do for player experience. The extended 30-minute trailer wowed many fans with its movie-like feel and soundtrack. In one scene, when an aggressor is shot, droplets of blood fly through the air, artfully highlighted in a micro-moment of slow motion.

​“... in past GTA games, it’s just funny when you run someone over because they’re like this low-poly model that kinda ragdolls. It doesn’t feel very real.”

​The adult players the game is rated for have the capacity not to conflate a video game with reality, according to Gareth Schott, a professor of media and creative technologies at the University of Waikato.

​“Games like GTA are more often than not understood as hyper-stylised for a mature 18+ audience who have the capacity to appreciate the hyper-satire and the various ways it heightens reality - cars drive faster, traffic runs slower, explosions are brighter and louder.

​“GTA is more of a theme park that offers a caricature of ‘familiar’ American cities depicted in the movies.

​GTA is known for pushing boundaries, he says.

​“That is their thing, antagonising broader society and culture’s discomfort with the same content found in film and television within an interactive game.”

​And what of the sex workers who have been an iconic part of the franchise since some of the earliest versions?

​The extended trailer had no obvious depictions of sex workers, although there was a brief shot inside a strip club. Unverified rumours are swirling online that Rockstar Games has moved away from interactions with sex workers, and punching down on minority groups in general.

​An Auckland-based sex worker and GTA fan who asked to be referred to as H hopes that interactions with sex workers are dropped from the game’s new version. As a teenager, while playing GTA, she killed sex workers “because that was what the boys were doing”.

​Now, having experienced violence in her work, “I realise how messed up the accessibility for encouraging violence towards sex workers has been in the game, amongst others”.

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