The most revealing reaction to the new Grand Theft Auto VI trailer came from China but had almost nothing to do with the game itself. Chinese gamers already skirt around the rules to play Rockstar Games titles, but some now worry they won’t be able to play at all because of a possible Easter egg—an NPC lookalike of Mao Zedong. About 12 minutes into the reveal of GTA VI, an Asian-looking man armed with a shotgun storms out of a food mart and fires off two rounds at the fleeing protagonists.
But at this point on China’s short-video app Bilibili, where the in-game footage was reposted, the sideways-flying comments, or danmu, turned cryptic. Others followed: “This face, seriously????” “The hairstyle.” “It looks so much like [him].” “Don’t say it, don’t say it.” “Don’t make it so I can’t play the game.” Then on Reddit, users began revealing a whole catalog of euphemisms referring to the founder of the People’s Republic. No one was saying it, but they were all thinking it: did Rockstar put Chairman Mao in my favorite game?
There’s no evidence that Rockstar meant to reference the hero of the Communist Party, and not everybody will see it, but Chinese gamers are already censoring themselves before the state has a chance to intervene. It shows the main characters Jason and Lucia shooting, stealing, driving and generally testing how far Florida-inspired Leonida can be pushed before somebody calls the police. THE game itself is due for release on November 19 and is expected to be the best-selling game ever produced.
There’s no other reason for one storekeeper to stand out in a five-second cameo, except for his remarkable resemblance to China’s late revolutionary leader, who died in 1976 aged 82. Bilibili users apparently rewatched it multiple times—just to be sure, of course. One Bilibili user offered up a safer explanation: “Could he just be an elderly Tommy?” a reference to Tommy Vercetti, the main character of 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
Outside of China’s highly scrutinized social media platforms, the discussion was considerably less coy. On one Reddit group, a user said, plainly: “Is that Mao?” “It’s that guy.” “Someone call the internet police.” “I don’t care. I preordered [the game] after the first trailer.” Rockstar describes GTA VI as its “biggest, most immersive evolution” of the popular series.
The last installment, GTA V and GTA Online, is still played by tens of millions of people each month, despite being released in 2013. None of Rockstar’s GTA games ever received an official, government-approved release in China, where depictions of sex, crime and violence in video games and other forms of entertainment are frequently banned. The restrictions work, but they also make gamers extra curious.
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