from simcopter sunday drive to gta 6, we really made it

Was thinking about this the other day. GTA 6 is close enough now that I keep flashing back to being a kid messing around with SimCopter. There was a cheat, Sunday drive or something, that pulled the camera out of the helicopter and stuck it on a random car driving around the blocky city. You couldn't control it. You just watched. And I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

A couple years later I was walking with my mom to this little soup place near our house, snow everywhere, and I spent the whole walk trying to explain video games to her. We played Sonic and stuff, but Ocarina of Time had just blown my mind with 3D. I told her one day there'd be a game with a whole city where you could do whatever. Steal a car, walk into any building, buy clothes, get a haircut, pick flowers and craft stuff. I genuinely didn't know if I'd live long enough to see it.

Then GTA III dropped in 2001 and I remember thinking holy shit, they actually did it. Real traffic, pedestrians, stealing cars, ignoring missions to just explore. It wasn't everything I'd imagined but the idea was real. I thought we'd peaked. Then Vice City, San Andreas, IV, V, RDR2, and now GTA 6.

There's something bittersweet about it. Back then games felt like this niche thing adults didn't get, something you'd grow out of. Now it's one of the biggest entertainment industries on the planet and millions of us are waiting for GTA 6 because we all dreamed about the same thing. A world that feels alive and lets you loose in it.

I feel lucky I got to watch it happen. From a camera stuck on a car I couldn't control in SimCopter to stealing cars in GTA III to whatever GTA 6 is about to be. The game I described to my mom isn't some far off fantasy anymore. It's basically here, and it's wild to think about.

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Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.