GTA 6 pre-orders have gone live. £69.99 for the standard edition, £89.99 if you want the Ultimate, and the whole thing lands on November 19th.
It got me thinking about something daft on the walk down Hospital Street.
Rockstar can build a whole living version of Miami. So what would they do with us? What would Nantwich actually look like as a game?
Bear with me. I know how this sounds.
The map would be small but every door would open
Forget the sprawl. A Nantwich map would be tight. You could probably jog from the lake to the square in about four minutes of real running.
But the trade off in these big open world games is that most buildings are just painted on.
You cannot go in. Here, you would expect every single one to open, because that is the town.
The jeweller that has been there longer than anyone can remember. The little independent on Pillory Street. Even the spots that have changed hands three times since lockdown.
And the river would flood on a timer. Obviously. A scripted event every few in game weeks where Mill Street goes under and you have to find another way round.
People who live here would not even flinch. New players would lose their minds.
Entertainment centres to wager money with or against other players
Every Rockstar game has its entertainment quarter. The neon bit where you go to blow your in game money.
And here is the thing. We are not short of places to keep a character occupied in the evening.
You would slot in a proper online casino mini game for the rainy days, the kind of thing you tap into when the river has flooded and you cannot get to the Crown anyway. It writes itself.
A side hustle for your character that does not need you to drive anywhere, which, given the size of the map, is a mercy.
It is not a stretch either. The way modern games fold gambling style mechanics into the wider world has become its own talking point, and not always a comfortable one.
The team behind a lot of the research into how these systems hook players, the people at GambleAware, have written plenty on where the line sits between a bit of fun and something that needs watching.
Worth a read if your character, or you, fancies pacing themselves.
Real venues that are lightly fictionalised
You would want actual places to do actual things. The leisure centre would be in there, because where else does a teenager go on a wet Tuesday.
The Civic Hall hosts a side quest involving a brass band and a missing trophy.
And the Players Theatre would be the spot where some non-playable character gives you a cryptic line about a show that may or may not be running.
The pubs would be safe points. The Black Lion. The Vine. The Globe. You walk in, the music dips, somebody nods, and your progress is locked in.
Lose all your health up by the lake and you respawn at the bar with a half drunk pint and no memory of how you got there. Realistic, that.
Side missions
No bank heists. Your big jobs would be getting a parking spot near the square on a Saturday market day.
Surviving the school run roundabout. Tracking down whoever keeps moving the recycling bins. Boss fight is a swan on the canal. You will not win.
Nobody wins against that swan and you know exactly which one I mean.
The food economy would be a whole system. Build your reputation by ordering correctly at the chippy.
Tip the market trader and unlock a discount. Order a flat white in the wrong cafe and watch your standing drop.
Would anyone actually play it?
Probably not. There is no helicopter chase, no shootout, no neon Miami sunset.
Just a market town in Cheshire where the most dangerous thing is the swan and the most exciting is the Saturday market. But I would play it.
I would put my seventy quid down for a game that lets me get a decent parking spot near the square without an argument.
That alone is more fantasy than anything Rockstar has dreamed up.
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