From swamps to skyscrapers, New Orleans is an interesting canvas for GTA 6.
GTA 6 City of the Week is a weekly article series here on GTA BOOM. Every week, we will evaluate a different city in the United States, gauging how well it would fit GTA 6 as a setting.
While the immense success of GTA Online and the massive amounts of money generated by the game's microtransactions, the Shark Cash Cards, have put a great big question mark over the single player portion of GTA 6, we can still evaluate cities regarding how fun the next iteration of GTA Online would be on a map based on them, right?
Yes, yes, it's still likely that the next game in the series will have a single-player mode for the sake of posterity. However the staggering financial success of the online model filled with extremely expensive items backed by the option to buy cash, you can forget about a single player centric game for sure.
However, with the turbulence swirling around Rockstar's house recently, official announcements may be sparse. Sure, they probably have the PR and marketing team working as usual (or even over-time), but it's doubtful that they want any significant news to be overshadowed.
So, without further ado, let's move on to our second city: New Orleans, the Murder Capital.
"La Nouvelle-Orléans" is located in the south-west of the United States in the state of Louisiana. Despite being the largest population center and metropolitan area, the city isn't the state's capitol — that honor goes to Baton Rouge. New Orleans is considered to be the "most unique" city in the United States and has been likened to the cities of the Caribbean. While the city is large with a typical downtown business area, the other districts are extremely varied with several demographics and architectural styles. With a swamp near-by, we've got enough variety for it to make a great game map.
With the above mentioned swamp, the Mississippi river and several lakes in the vicinity, we have the bordering bodies of water down. Separating the new-town, old-town, French, Spanish and British districts, you've got a basic sectioned-off map formula done already. With three different styles between Vice City, Liberty City and Los Santos, adding a fourth entirely different one will shake things up nicely.
You might have noticed we introduced the city as "The Murder Captial". The murder rate is the highest in the country, and 21st worldwide with almost 60 murders per 100,000 people. This would allow for Rockstar to go off the rails a bit more with the random events, such as PEDs spontaneously offing one another out in the street. On the other hand, New Orleans isn't particularly known for its gangs or mafia affiliations, so setting up your usual factions might be a bit more tricky. There really isn't a unifying motive for homicides in the city, but they are plenty. In terms of other criminal activity, the only notable one is illegal littering. Maybe we'll get a trash collecting mini-game?
You might also have noticed we described the city as the most unique in the US. The French colonial roots can still be seen today, while downtown has conformed to your typical American big city look. There is an interesting mingle of architectural styles in a relatively small area. New Orleans is possibly the most visually recognizable city in the entire country if you're not focusing on landmarks, just everyday streets. The French Quarter is one of the most iconic sights to see, along with the Saint Louis Catholic Cathedral. However, even downtown, New Orleans isn't particularly a "tall" city, so there isn't a jungle of towering skyscrapers that we've seen in every GTA game so far.
While New Orleans has been shaping up nicely till this point, this is where the city might lose some points. Since the criminal element in the city isn't particularly organised or famous, there isn't much to base a story on. Of course, the story could be an entirely original work, to which the blank slate offered by the city is ideal, however it would be nice to ground it with some real connections, like in the other games. Luckily the only other notable game set in the city was the rather forgettable portable Assassin's Creed title, Liberation — no risk of getting the two mixed up.
A+
Pros: Extremely iconic, high murder rate, would be something fresh
Cons: Nothing to base the story on (which could be a good thing?)
Just two cities in and we have ourselves some top marks here. The clean slate New Orleans offers along with all of its great assets would make it the perfect location for a GTA game, while giving the story team all the room in the world to get creative.
Which city would you like us to evaluate next week? Vote in the comments!
