Grand Theft Auto 6’s morality meter can reportedly “shatter” and lead to you becoming essentially irredeemable for an entire playthrough of the game.
YouTuber TGG got to see GTA 6 behind closed doors during a recent preview and has provided a ton of details on the game. There has been a lot of chatter about the game’s “criminal profile” system, which acts similarly to the morality system in the Red Dead Redemption games. In a new video, TGG broke down the different levels of the game’s criminal profile system, noting that there are four states: Professional (the highest and most honorable part of the meter), Aggressive, Violent, and the lowest option, Psycho.
There’s also an additional unnamed state which will begin to crack and eventually shatter if you are going too far off the rails. Rockstar suggested to TGG that achieving this state is very difficult, and it’s partially there for players who clearly demonstrate that they don’t care about this system, making it so the game will no longer measure your actions if the meter shatters.
Rockstar is trying to find a balance where players don’t have to engage with every system in GTA 6. If you want to kill everyone you see, you can do that without feeling like you’re being punished. You can turn off notifications that alert you to your criminal profile’s status, allowing you to be blissfully ignorant about how the game views your actions.
The system is more to measure the kind of criminal you are. It measures if your actions are justified. If you’re holding up a store and someone shoots back at you, you have the right to kill them without it impacting your criminal profile negatively. However, if you run in and shoot a helpless store clerk or escalate a situation without cause, that’s when the meter will begin to slide toward the darker side.
Additionally, Jason and Lucia have their own independent profiles, meaning you can play them completely differently if you want. It’s unclear how much this profile will impact the story or if it can change the ending like Red Dead Redemption 2’s honor system. Given Rockstar is giving players the freedom to engage with it at all, it’s hard to say if it will have a significant impact on how the narrative unravels.
GTA 6 also features a relationship meter, which measures how in love Jason and Lucia are based on the player’s actions. This has caused some discourse and controversy on social media among the spouses of players, as they fear they will pay more attention to their in-game partner than their real one. Do what you will with that information.
Ultimately, GTA 6 sounds like a very rich roleplaying experience. It’ll be interesting to see just how deep all of these systems go, but it sounds like it has the potential to be one of the most interactive and nuanced games of the generation.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.