GTA 6: Can you cheat on someone with a video game character?
For decades, video games have allowed players to build relationships with non-player characters, or NPCs. Gamers could marry villagers in Harvest Moon in 1996, shape emotional storylines in Final Fantasy VII and pursue more complex romances in role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate II. In life simulator The Sims, they could flirt, date, marry and have…
For decades, video games have allowed players to build relationships with non-player characters, or NPCs.
Gamers could marry villagers in Harvest Moon in 1996, shape emotional storylines in Final Fantasy VII and pursue more complex romances in role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate II.
In life simulator The Sims, they could flirt, date, marry and have children with computer-controlled characters.
But all those interactions were tightly scripted, based on rules and storylines written in advance by game developers.
GTA 6 appears to offer something more dynamic, allowing players to shape the relationship between Jason and Lucia through a wider range of open-world interactions and choices.
“The more sophisticated games get, the less likely it is that players get pulled out of the experience,” says Arienne Ferchaud, an associate professor at Florida State University who studies how people form connections with fictional characters.
“Games are doing a better job of mimicking reality and mimicking social relationships.”
