GTA VI: Mao Zedong Edition
Newsweek · C · trust 58/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. 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.
“Who is that?” one viewer said. 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.
“Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look,” a 26-minute demonstration captured entirely from in-game footage on PlayStation 5, was released on Thursday. 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.
“Here it comes,” one comment said before the NPC, or non-playable character, appeared on screen. “Why does this look strangely familiar?” All were referring to the plump Asian man who posed like black-and-white photographs of Mao looking through the sights of a rifle in the mid-1960s, before his Cultural Revolution began.
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 . No, he’s not.
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.
If you’ve played GTA Online , you’ve probably met one. They’re annoyingly good.
It’s difficult to say with certainty just how many people connect from within the Great Firewall, but those who do play GTA Online from China do so using a virtual private network, or VPN, which masks their true location.
That’s how the country’s fervent online army uses Elon Musk’s X and how the most well-known Chinese celebrities get to update their fans on Meta’s Instagram.
But there’s a catch. China’s VPNs exist in a grey area and the state’s cybercensors can choose not to intervene if the crime isn’t worth their time. If it is, politically sensitive social media content can be scrubbed in a matter of moments, as if by some form of automation.
“Our beloved Chairman Mao makes a cameo in a world-famous video game—why is that an insult?” one Reddit user asked. Another wanted to know: even if GTA VI really is alluding to Mao, does that count as insulting China?
The uncertainty is the point. Rockstar hasn’t said the NPC is Mao and there’s no evidence he was modeled on Mao. But Chinese-speaking gamers saw Mao and were too scared to type his name, just in case.
That’s the power of self-censorship in Xi Jinping’s highly surveilled China. The chances of Chinese gamers playing a title that features a caricatured version of an American president are high, but the chances they’ll spot a Chinese leader are slim to none.
Mao’s likeness is particularly sensitive in China and his legacy entirely undebatable. Authors and artists have been censored, jailed or worse for questioning his historical deeds.
In 2018, legislation was enacted to outlaw the defamation of “heroes and martyrs,” which included Communist Party figures but also those who were honored by the state for more recent sacrifices. In 2021, a separate amendment made it an offense under China’s Criminal Law, punishable by up to three years in prison.
Rockstar has nothing to lose, even if it did mean the Mao reference. It doesn’t have official access to the mainland Chinese market anyway and has no incentive to give the food mart owner a new face. Chinese gamers, on the other hand, stand to miss out on a generational product due to an Easter egg.
If GTA VI becomes problematic for one reason or another, the Chinese government could compel VPNs to deny their users access to Rockstar’s servers.
What is more likely, and what China’s gamers may fear more, is less unofficial access to related content due to state censorship of livestreams or takedowns of…
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