GTA 6's Lucia And Jason Are Already Sparking TikTok Arguments

It wouldn't be the build up to a new "Grand Theft Auto" if there wasn't controversy surrounding it. Likewise, it also wouldn't be "GTA" unless some of that controversy was unlike any other type of controversy that a game has ever faced. Sure enough, "GTA VI" protagonists Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval are already being accused of being the unwanted third wheel in people's real-life relationships. Pretty impressive, especially given that nobody has even played the game or directly interacted with those characters yet. It wouldn't be the first time "GTA" characters caused real-life controversies, but this is a whole new beast entirely.

Rockstar announced that the romance between Lucia and Jason is going to have to be nurtured by the player in order to flourish. That is to say, you need to make sure they are responding to each other's texts, spending quality time together, treating each other well, and so on. Seems pretty cool, right? Not according to a few viral TikToks, which have said that if their partner puts all this time into making sure Jason and/or Lucia are feeling loved, then that's essentially cheating.

Granted, we still don't really know all that much about this system. Not to mention that it seems like players will need to tend to both sides of the relationship — meaning, they won't just be "dating Jason" or "dating Lucia," as it were. But that hasn't stopped preemptive jealousy from creeping in. 

On one hand, it's not entirely unheard of that people would legitimately be feeling some type of way about their partners' investment in a video game characters' romantic needs. But it's also hard not to assume that most of that discourse has been for the sake of engagement, with people knowing that "GTA 6" is one of the hottest topics in all of pop culture at the moment and are going to try and catch some of that windfall. As noted, those TikToks about partners "cheating" with Jason or Lucia have gone viral — and when something goes viral, others are going to jump on the bandwagon.

Now that the mainstream world has been fully exposed to "GTA 6" and the hype cycle has gotten going in full force, we're going to see more and more of this type of thing. Even people who otherwise wouldn't discuss video games on their TikTok, Instagram, or whatever else are suddenly going to have a lot to say about "GTA 6" because it's a surefire way to get attention. That's just the nature of a media release of this size, and it's only going to get bigger — and in turn, more ridiculous — in both the home stretch before the release of "GTA 6" and the first few months after. Buckle up.