The GTA 6 reveal has me wowed by Vice City and underwhelmed by Rockstar's same old missions

The big gameplay reveal for GTA 6 has come and gone, and I'm surprised by how mixed I am on it.

In some ways, I'm more excited than ever play it. Vice City gives an amazing first impression—I'm already convinced it'll be the special sort of open world that you just want to exist in. Rockstar is packing it full of little activities and human touches that might make GTA 6 a borderline life sim: eating, drinking, sleeping, recreation, hanging out with buds, skydiving, dirt bike racing, and store robbing (I didn't say the activities were all aspirational). I'm seeing a lot of stuff I want to do.

That stuff looks so good it's almost overwhelming, but the bits in between all that—those fragments of story missions—were less impressive. I was hoping 13 years would change the shape of GTA's authored action, but Rockstar is still very much working with the same tools.

In the first mission we see Jason and Lucia doing a drug deal for Boobie Ike, and I bet you can guess what happens: The pair exchange some uneasy words with the buyer, then the deal goes wrong when the cops show up. Our heroes shoot their way out of the building.