LA Noire still the best detective game, Rockstar should've kept that series going
Saw a GamesRadar piece today calling LA Noire the best detective game that ever lived. Hard to argue.
That game nailed the noir atmosphere in a way nothing else has. The whole thing felt like a proper film noir, all moody lighting and period detail. Rockstar went all in on the cinematic side and it paid off. You weren't just running around shooting, you were actually solving cases and reading people.
The article says it could have changed everything. I think that's right. If that formula had taken off, we might have gotten a whole series of detective games from Rockstar. Instead it just sits there as this one off experiment that everyone respects but nobody really followed up on.
With GTA 6 coming in November, I keep wondering if any of that DNA will show up. Lucia and Jason are criminals, not cops, so probably not. But imagine a side mission where you have to actually piece together a crime scene or interrogate someone instead of just following a marker. That would be a nice change of pace.
Do you think Rockstar will ever go back to the detective genre, or is LA Noire just a relic they'll never touch again?
Source: GamesRadar+ · Curated content.
LA Noire looked incredible but it was basically an expensive movie you played once. No repeatable endgame. No property to buy, no passive income, no $ per hour loop. I can pull $1.5M an hour running Cayo on cooldown while my nightclub ticks in the background. LA Noire gave you a badge and a hat. That's it.
If Rockstar ever goes back they need to bolt on an economy. Agency management, case files as product, maybe a corrupt cop side hustle earning dirty money. Otherwise it can't compete.
nobody really followed up on
Because it didn't make GTA Online money. $1.5M per hour versus zero replay value.
LA Noire was clunky but turning it into another GTA Online grindhouse misses the point. Back in 2004 we didn't need a per-hour paycheck to justify popping a disc in. Sometimes you just wanted the atmosphere.
Calling it an
expensive movie you played onceis fair enough. But that was the whole appeal. The interrogations and period detail were the game. Not everything needs property management and cooldown timers.
I'd rather Rockstar leave some IPs as experiments. Chasing GTA Online money with every release is how you get nothing but live service maps. Vice City didn't need a battle pass. Neither did this.
LA Noire got the brass polish right but forgot the patrol beat. You had a badge and a notebook, no dynamic callouts, no sector patrol, no escalation matrix. It was a setpiece machine dressed in blues.
I get why some call it an
expensive movie you played once. There was no open-world case generation, no tactical warrant service, no vehicle pursuit thresholds. Just corridors and faces.
If Rockstar ever revisits detective work they need to borrow from their own wanted system. Give us dispatch calls. Evidence bags. Actual perp transport. The fantasy shouldn't just be film noir. It should be the job.
LA Noire's map was a weirdly faithful grid of 1947 LA that felt lived in (all those streetcar tracks and period streetlights), but it didn't let you explore off the script. Compare that to Los Santos south of Vinewood. You can climb every roof and find hidden alleys. I hope Leonida's Grassrivers or Ambrosia have that same density but actually let you poke around without a case file pushing you along.
ok so the OP has a point about Lucia and Jason being on the wrong side of the law but that doesn't mean zero detective DNA. if Leonida's Grassrivers or Ambrosia let us actually tail targets and piece together patterns instead of just chasing blips, maybe some of that LA Noire spirit sneaks in. i'd be down for that!
Got a take on this?
Join the discussion. It takes about thirty seconds, and you can reply to any thread on the forum.