GTA 6 Fans Already Love Lucia, Rockstar's First Female Protagonist in Decades

4 months 4 weeks ago
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IGN

It's no surprise that all anyone can talk about today is the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, which Rockstar released early yesterday after a leaker posted it to Twitter/X. Already, devs are praising it, fans are dissecting it, and skeptics are critiquing it. But my favorite discourse so far has to be the effusive praise for the unquestionable star of the trailer: Lucia.

While Lucia is technically sharing the protagonist role in GTA 6 with another character, Jason, Lucia's role in the first trailer is far more prominent. She opens the trailer by echoing past GTA intros and explaining why she's here in the first place ("Bad luck, I guess.") and performs a wide range of roles across the trailer from calculating criminal to joyous, no-holds-barred party girl.

The trailer goes out of its way to establish her as witty, smart, fun, competent, beautiful, and complex. So it's no shock that a large segment of the internet is already in love with her:

Her prominence is especially notable and celebration-worthy given the series' history with leading ladies over the years. While some have praised her as the very first female protagonist in GTA history, that's not actually true — both the original GTA and GTA 2 (well, the GBC version) featured playable ladies, and GTA Online also allows players to create a custom character that can be either male or female.

But from this trailer alone, Lucia already stands to be the most prominent woman the series has ever featured, and represents a significant shift from the studio's philosophy for GTA 5 in particular. All of which likely plays into the reasons why Rockstar was so eager to show her off, and why women in particular are so thrilled at how cool she is.

Earlier this year, when GTA 6 first leaked online, there was some degree of trepidation that Rockstar would be able to pull off a female lead given the series' history of portraying half the population. But Lucia is one hell of a great start for GTA 6, and I know I'm not alone in wanting to see a lot more of her in future trailers leading up to the game's 2025 release.

Author
Rebekah Valentine

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