Three weeks out: the six questions about Lucia Caminos that Rockstar still has not answered

Fair warning: this is opinion, mine, and most of it is questions rather than answers. Where Rockstar has said or shown something I say so. Where Edge reported something this week I say that too. The rest is a woman who has watched three trailers and a 26-minute video more times than is healthy, asking what she still does not know.

With 20 days to go, Rockstar has told us more about Lucia Caminos than it told us about Niko Bellic before GTA IV, and less than it feels like. I wrote her up properly eleven days ago from the character page, the trailers and the Extended Look, and I stand by all of it. This is the other list: the gaps. Six of them.

1. What was the stroke of luck?

What Rockstar says. Lucia went into Leonida Penitentiary for fighting for her family, and "got out through a stroke of luck". Trailer 1 opens with her in prison scrubs. Every later piece of footage has her outside.

My read. Luck in a Rockstar story is never luck. Somebody paid, somebody pulled a string, or somebody made a mistake with her paperwork, and the game is going to tell us who, probably at the worst possible moment. The question is whether the debt belongs to her or to Jason. If he arranged it, their relationship starts with him owning something of hers, and that changes every scene between them. If she did it herself, she walks out already smarter than everyone around her. I know which one I want.

2. Who is her family now?

What Rockstar says. Her father taught her to fight. Fighting for her family put her inside. She spent her early years in Liberty City.

My read. Notice what is missing: a mother, a brother, a name. We know she has a father and that he taught her something useful. We do not know if he is alive, in Leonida, or in Liberty City, or whether "fighting for her family" means defending them or avenging them. Every GTA lead since San Andreas has had a family thread that pulls the plot; CJ's mother, Niko's cousin, Michael's whole house. Lucia's is the one Rockstar has kept the quietest, and I think that means it matters most.

3. What does she actually want from Jason?

What Rockstar says. She is "the one who gets things done" when Jason hesitates. The Extended Look shows them as a couple already. Edge reports this week that their closeness runs on a four-point scale raised by time spent together, which I went through on Wednesday.

My read. A scale you can leave at one is a story that has to work without love in it. So what is Lucia to Jason if the player never takes her to dinner: partner, employer, or the person who is going to leave him when the money is in the bag? Rockstar's own text never uses the word love. It has said she wants the good life. Those are not the same sentence, and the gap between them is where I think the whole ending lives. My earlier piece on the couple argued she is the one running the relationship; nothing this week changed my mind.

4. Who is she when he is not there?

What Rockstar says. The Extended Look shows her alone: on a bench press in a gym, on a bed with her phone, at the wheel of a car, and in a bandana beside a burning car. Edge reports you can switch between the two leads at any time outside missions.

My read. Switching means she needs a life to switch into. GTA V gave each of its three men a house, a routine and a set of friends who rang them. We have seen Lucia's bedroom and her gym. We have not seen a single friend of hers who is not also Jason's, or a place that is hers. Rockstar may be saving it. It may also be that her life, the way the game sees it, starts when she meets him, which would be the oldest mistake in the book and one I do not think this studio makes any more. Twenty days to find out.

5. What does "the good life" look like?

What Rockstar says. She wants "the good life", and she intends to make nothing but smart moves from here.

My read. Every GTA ends with a choice about money. The good life is a phrase about something else: a house, a car with the roof down, a beach you do not have to run across. The trailers keep showing her exactly that, on a yacht, at a pool, in the sequin dress, and every time it looks like a lie she has been told rather than a thing she has. I think the game is about whether she can tell the difference. I also think she can, and that it costs her.

6. Whose story is this?

What Rockstar says. Two leads. Jason's page is about a man who wants an easy life and keeps getting dragged back. Lucia's is about a woman who has already paid once and will not do it twice.

My read. Those are not two halves of one story. One of them is the protagonist and the other is the person the protagonist happens to. Rockstar has never said which. The marketing leads with Lucia: Trailer 1 was hers, and she is the face on the cover art. The Extended Look splits its time between the two of them. Three weeks out, I still do not know whether GTA 6 is Lucia's game with Jason in it, or Jason's game with the first woman Rockstar has ever let drive. I have a guess, and I am keeping it until November 19.

What would answer all six

One scene. Rockstar does not need another trailer; it needs ten seconds of Lucia on her own, talking to someone who is not Jason, about something that is not the job. If that exists, it is the first thing I will write about on launch night. If it does not, that is a piece too.

Lucia Caminos, properly: what Rockstar has actually shown