- Published
Imagine your partner spending hours flirting with someone else, trying to hold their hand and taking them on dates. Most people would have questions.
But what if that someone only exists inside a video game?
The latest instalment in Rockstar's blockbuster Grand Theft Auto franchise is set to be the biggest entertainment launch of the year when it is released next month.
Judging by previews, the connection between its two main characters is a central feature.
Rockstar has hinted that the Bonnie and Clyde-type protagonists Jason and Lucia do not have to become a full-on romantic couple.
But their relationship can grow by spending time together outside of the main crime and life-on-the-run storyline – through shopping, visiting bars and restaurants and working out together.
Smaller interactions like holding hands and quickly responding to each other's texts can help build a bond.
The idea has restarted a debate almost as old as gaming itself: if you are that invested in a fictional relationship, is your real-life partner entitled to be upset?
In September, polling company YouGov put that question to more than 4,000 British adults.
About 6% said they would regard it as cheating, while a further 19% said they would "not be okay with it". Women were considerably more likely than men to take a dim view.
Alli Franco, a 30-year-old Texan who posts anime and gaming content to more than a million followers, external on TikTok, says she felt "dismayed" watching the debate unfold online.
"If your partner is insecure about a fictional character, then there needs to be some serious reflection," she told the BBC.
"It's similar to having a crush on a TV star, but even further removed from cheating since there is no other actual person involved.”
After Franco posted a video on the subject, hundreds of commenters appeared to agree with her, although some did have reservations.
"To be honest, it depends," wrote one. "If you're cancelling plans with your significant other or directing your intimacy towards a fictional character, then that is a little odd."
Mimicking social relationships
For decades, video games have allowed players to build relationships with non-player characters, or NPCs.
Gamers could marry villagers in Harvest Moon in 1996, shape emotional storylines in Final Fantasy VII and pursue more complex romances in role-playing games like Baldur's Gate II.
In life simulator The Sims, they could flirt, date, marry and have children with computer-controlled characters.
But all those interactions were tightly scripted, based on rules and storylines written in advance by game developers.
GTA 6 appears to offer something more dynamic, allowing players to shape the relationship between Jason and Lucia through a wider range of open-world interactions and choices.
"The more sophisticated games get, the less likely it is that players get pulled out of the experience," says Arienne Ferchaud, an associate professor at Florida State University who studies how people form connections with fictional characters.
"Games are doing a better job of mimicking reality and mimicking social relationships."
Grand Theft Auto 6 may represent the current cutting edge of game design, but the next leap forward could come from artificial intelligence.
Nvidia, Ubisoft and other huge tech companies are already experimenting with generative AI systems that allow players to hold more natural conversations with NPCs.
Future characters could remember past encounters, react to a player's actions and build relationships that change over time rather than following a pre-written script.
Ferchaud believes that could make games feel even more immersive.
"You could have relationships that feel more solid or more special," she says, although she argues AI as it exists today would still be creating "a stronger illusion" rather than a genuinely meaningful connection.
Whether that is exciting or unsettling may depend on the player, and there has been some resistance to the wider use of the technology in gaming.
Franco says she is already seeing adverts for AI chatbots that let fans talk to their favourite anime characters.
"I can definitely see AI integrating into games and making it a more realistic experience," she says.
"But should that happen I would still see it as just a game. At the end of the day you can't cheat with lines of code."
- Published30 September
- Published7 October