Birdman and Lil Wayne? Check. Kodak Black? Check. Sexxy Red and Tay Keith? Check? Depeche Mode, Phil Collins, Prefab Sprout, Def Leppard and the Bellamy Brothers? Check. !!!? Check. Cliff Richard? Wait, what?
Yes, if you were making a checklist for ‘which artists’ music might soundtrack ‘extended look’ trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI’ that debuted on Netflix last night, the famously-devout Sir Cliff may not have been an obvious choice for 27 minutes of shooting, speeding, coke-snorting action.
But yes, ‘Devil Woman’ was one of the most prominent tracks in the video, which can now also be watched on the YouTube channel of publisher Rockstar Games. Here’s a full list of the songs featured.
The Netflix exclusive was just another reminder of the sheer scale of GTA VI as an entertainment property: estimated to have cost up to $1.5bn to develop so far, with a release date set for 19 November after several delays.
Music has been at the heart of the GTA franchise for some time now, and beyond the soundtrack and in-game radio stations, it seems that it will be interwoven into the narrative more deeply than ever in GTA VI.
Dazed was one of the few publications granted an embargoed preview and interview, and it has more details, including on a music studio that will be a key location in the fictional Leonida – based on Florida.
“We love Miami music, particularly Miami bass, going through to more recent Miami artists like Kodak Black and Sexyy Red,” said Rockstar’s SVP of narrative Rupert Humphries in the interview.
“We were also really interested in how the hip-hop scene in Miami exists in house parties in Overtown, clubs like Booby Trap on the River, and then high-end places on South Beach where bottles can cost thousands of dollars. We needed characters who could take us through those worlds.”
GTA VI will also feature a virtual artist: a duo of “rising stars” called Real Dimez “whose journey can be traced via in-game viral social media posts”. They’re pictured above. That’s something we’ll be keeping an eye on: will Real Dimez have full tracks in-game, and will they be released outside this fictional universe, for example?
The extended-look focused on the game’s single-player story mode, with Rockstar maintaining its radio silence on any plans for an online mode to follow the hugely successful (and lucrative) online part of GTA V.
Reports last year suggested that Rockstar had been talking to “top Roblox and Fortnite creators, as well as dedicated GTA content creators, about the potential to create custom experiences inside the upcoming game”. Music partnerships could be part of that too, but it seems we may have to wait until 2027 to find out more.
Source link
