Ever since the first trailer for GTA 6 came out, MeinMMO editor Caro has been super excited about the possibility of a multiplayer mode like GTA Online. That’s because, thanks to its protagonist, the online spin-off would fix a lot of things that she unfortunately didn’t like at all in the previous game.
On that glorious day, December 5, 2023, my eyes fell upon the title “Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1” on YouTube. After just 7 seconds, I realized: “Oh my God—GTA 6 is getting a female protagonist,” and my joy was immense.
GTA 5 was a huge part of my youth, and now to know that not only is another installment finally coming out, but that you’d be able to switch between a male and a female character? That filled me with such great anticipation—something I’m sure other female GTA fans will understand.
In fact, the idea of a typical GTA story told partly from a female perspective led me to another big hope. Thanks to Lucia Caminos, there’s no getting around it:
Rockstar will have to engage more deeply with the topic of femininity. And that’s music to my ears, especially considering how it was handled in GTA 5.
Here you can watch the trailer that took the internet by storm in December 2023:
What’s my issue with the portrayal in GTA 5?
I really enjoyed playing GTA 5, both the single-player story and GTA Online, and I had a lot of fun with the over-the-top humor and gameplay. (Plus, I was 13 or 14 when I first started playing, and I just thought it was damn funny to “decorate” my hood with as many pedestrians as possible.)
However, I was able to overlook one thing that still bothered me on a subconscious level. While there was a wide variety of male archetypes, the portrayal of women was largely limited to one: shrill, loud, and at times hysterical.
Important: This portrayal is (especially in a game like GTA, where everything is a bit exaggerated) absolutely fine. But… does it really have to be the only one?
The issue is not the approach, but the lack of diversity
Despite how much fun it was, I wish they’d just put a little more care into the female characters shown. No, that doesn’t mean strippers and sex workers need to be removed from the game, but just give us more diversity among female characters… just like with Lucia.
The GTA series may have been designed for male players in the past, but now, at 48%, nearly half of all players worldwide are female, as a 2025 study by the Entertainment Software Association found.
We don’t know if all of them play GTA, but assuming that GTA 5 and 6 are exclusively for men is simply outdated these days.
One could argue that GTA Online already offered the option to play as a woman whom you could customize however you wanted. But if you look closely, that option still didn’t represent much diversity.
Femininity in GTA Online came down to pronouns and a skin
When I first started playing GTA Online, I also chose a female character, and (after stripping her of my “taste” as a 13-year-old and customizing her anew) I’m now “satisfied” with her. Satisfied, but I wouldn’t call it being happy.
In GTA 5, it becomes painfully clear that using “she” as a pronoun, feminine clothing, and a selection of makeup are all rather superficial. In some instances in GTA Online, however, it was still evident that the developers hadn’t gone any further in addressing female character diversity.
Ouch, my lats
If you take a close look at the cutscenes in GTA Online, you’ll see that they were created to portray a stereotypically masculine demeanor. Our characters walk with a chest-forward gait, the broad arm stance of a gym bro with freshly pumped lats, wide-set strides, and a controlled sway, as if their body weight had to be shifted from one side to the other.
I don’t style my characters in an ultra-feminine, girly-pop style anyway, but I can imagine that some female players would at least like to experience the immersion that comes with it. And even if it’s complicated to create an animation for every level on the masculine-to-feminine spectrum, it would still be much nicer to position the style more in the middle ground.
And if you’re still not quite following me on the animation front, no problem. Have you ever played as a female character in GTA Online and invited a woman off the street into your car? Then paid her and driven her to a quiet corner? Do you remember what the animation that follows looks like? Exactly—the game doesn’t make a distinction based on how you’re equipped, because there’s only one.
Why Lucia is already an icon to me even before the release
I’m so glad that GTA 6 features a couple as protagonists. Not just because of the strong story potential, but because Rockstar can no longer avoid addressing the spectrum of femininity instead of saying: woman = high heels and makeup.
Yes, high heels and makeup are fun for a lot of people! But just from the promotional material for GTA 6 and Lucia’s portrayal in the trailer, we can see how diverse femininity can be. The possibilities are immense, and it just makes me incredibly happy to see how much attention to detail has gone into it.
There are different long and short hairstyles, sportier styles, high-fashion outfits, dresses, sneakers, and looks ranging from neat to a bit more relaxed.
(All images are from the official Rockstar site)
If, thanks to Lucia, female characters (whether story-relevant or just random NPCs) are shown with greater diversity across the spectrum, that could also be a huge win for all the female characters yet to be created in a potential GTA 6 Online. I have high hopes that Rockstar will use GTA 6 to show that gender doesn’t matter when it comes to creating cool characters. That would have me hooked from day one.
Would you also be happy about better options and a broader portrayal of different women? Or is that more of a secondary concern for you? Let us know in the comments! For GTA 6, I returned to the previous GTA title after a long time and was surprised at how quickly I felt at home again: Because of GTA 6, I returned to the game that captivated me for 400 hours as a child
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