Grand Theft Auto 6 can bring the series' name full-circle by adding one feature that the series should have included long ago - true car combat. Despite the series' success, Grand Theft Auto is still lacking features that its competitors have already figured out. Even though the games have been successful up to this point, the developers still need to make sure that they don't end up falling behind.
Grand Theft Auto is the most popular series of open-world sandbox video games, and one of the most well-known names in gaming in general. The GTA games have garnered more success and controversy than most, and they have grabbed plenty of headlines for both reasons. The franchise's signatures of over-the-top crime stories and crass humor have kept it relevant even through a long series of releases, although Rockstar's different changes for GTA 6 could tone down the series' edginess, giving the game a chance to find a new niche. Even as other sandbox games have come and gone, Grand Theft Auto keeps retaking the center of attention with every new release.
Even though GTA has kept its place as the biggest game in its genre, it still has some significant improvements that can be made. Ironically, the biggest improvements involve a part of its very title. If Grand Theft Auto could improve on its car mechanics, then it could evolve into an even stronger series. Otherwise, it could become a very ironic weakness for the series.
Grand Theft Auto Ironically Doesn't Pay Its Cars Much Attention
With the series being title being what it is, one would think that cars would be a major part of the game. However, the opposite is true, and even GTA Online's fastest car in 2022 doesn't feel particularly special as a result. While the player can buy and customize cars, they are more or less just used for transportation. No matter how much a player pays for a car in-game, it never amounts to anything important.
In Grand Theft Auto, cars are largely interchangeable. While the player can keep a car in their garage, they will lose it if it gets destroyed, no matter how much money they spent on it. Even in GTA Online, the player will lose their cars unless they buy insurance for them. Not only that, but cars rarely get to play major roles in missions aside from taking the player from place to place. Even when a fight does break out in a car, the player has to awkwardly balance driving with shooting, which feels clunky and can easily cause them to fail at one of the two tasks.
Bringing classic vehicles back to GTA 6 would be a welcome treat, but the weakness of cars as a mechanic in Grand Theft Auto is something that needs to be addressed first. Although it promises an automotive focus, the cars get shoved to the side in favor of gunplay in almost every circumstance. Despite GTA Online releasing scores of new cars, there is almost nothing particularly interesting to do with them.
Grand Theft Auto Is Falling Behind Its Competitors With Vehicle Combat
As previously mentioned, vehicle combat in Grand Theft Auto is very underwhelming. However, there is an obvious addition that could improve this mechanic. Not only that, but it is a solution that competing games have already incorporated, and to great effect at that. The best thing that GTA 6 could bring to its cars is the ability to use the cars themselves as a weapon.
A dedicated ability to ram and sideswipe cars is one of many things that GTA 6 could learn from other sandbox games. The Saints Row reboot included the ability to sideswipe, and it proved to be a majorly useful addition to the series. Even back in 2012, Sleeping Dogs featured vehicle combat as a major mechanic, with many missions involving the player battling it out on the road with other cars. In both of these examples, car combat is not only fun, but it makes almost every task that involves driving more engaging as a result.
Grand Theft Auto itself missed a good opportunity to introduce car combat in GTA 5. Franklin's gimmick was being the ace driver of the protagonists, so one would expect him to be able to sideswipe and pull off PIT maneuvers, but even though Franklin looks weird using his GTA 5 ability, he can't do either of those things. Grand Theft Auto missed an opportunity in the previous game, but GTA 6 can fix that mistake.
Car Combat Can Create New Opportunities For Grand Theft Auto 6
Adding in sideswiping, PIT maneuvers, and ramming as explicit commands for cars in GTA 6 would open the door for plenty of new missions styles. Not only that, but it would make older mechanics such as races and car chases much more fun in the process. Car combat could be the key to helping Grand Theft Auto 6 be the biggest, most entertaining game in the series.
Police chases in Grand Theft Auto games can be annoyingly long because of how difficult it is to lose the cops, even without teleporting cops ruining driving missions in GTA. Letting the player ram them out of the way or send them careening off the road would give them a tool to cut those chases short, not to mention make them more dynamic. The same goes for races, which could become much more exciting as the player and their opponents would now have the option to try to take each other out before the finish line.
Car combat could even herald the return of demolition derbies, a scarcely-used mechanic in the series that Grand Theft Auto's signature style could do great justice to.
In Grand Theft Auto games, the player almost always has a huge arsenal of weapons by the end of the game. The player's car could and should be their biggest and most dangerous weapon, and treating GTA 6's cars like RDR2's horses by making them important would help in that regard. Enemies in GTA are always relentless in their pursuit of the protagonist, so the player should be able to be just as aggressive and then some right back.
Other games have shown that using the player's car as a weapon is an excellent mechanic, and Grand Theft Auto should recognize that. New car mechanics combined with better customization could finally let cars be a major aspect of the games, like the title would lead one to believe. Everyone already knows that the Grand Theft Auto 6 protagonists will do a lot of thieving, but they should get a chance to show off their automotive skills too.