'It gives me the ick': Can you cheat on someone with a video game?

'It gives me the ick': Can you cheat on someone with a video game?

The relationship between the two main characters, Jason and Lucia, is at the centre of Rockstar's latest Grand Theft Auto title

Imagine your partner spending hours flirting with someone else, trying to hold their hand and taking them on dates. Most people would have questions.

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.

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.

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?

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.

"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.”

"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."

Can you cheat on your partner in a video game character?

Mimicking social relationships

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.

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.

Rockstar has said players do not have to build a romantic connection in the game

Nvidia, Ubisoft and other huge tech companies are already experimenting with generative AI systems that allow players to hold more natural conversations with NPCs.

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.

"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."