GTA 6 in LOVE magazine: Rockstar's writers on making Jason and Lucia 'vulnerable, tough, flawed'

LOVE magazine's Issue 27 has a Grand Theft Auto VI cover, with artwork LOVE credits to Rockstar Games, and interviews with five Rockstar staff about Jason Duval, Lucia Caminos and the state they live in. LOVE previewed the cover and quotes from the interviews on Instagram on Oct. 2, and the issue went on newsstands Oct. 5.

The interviewer is LOVE editorial director Kacion Mayers. Most of the quotes LOVE has shared come from Rockstar's writers, on how they built GTA 6's two leads and the satire around them. The full article is in print only.

Who LOVE interviewed

Titles as LOVE gives them:

"We hope people will want to escape into these worlds and these characters," Nelson told LOVE.

Jason and Lucia: "vulnerable, tough, flawed"

Gauvey-Kern told LOVE the writers "wanted both protagonists to be vulnerable, tough, flawed," each right at some moments and wrong at others, and able to learn from the other. "That's what we felt made them authentic, and a great team," she said.

D'Agostino said that writing a full person, with wants of their own, produces "something perfectly imperfect," which she described as "with clichés, but also undeniably real."

Rockstar's official bios set the pair up. Jason Duval is an Army veteran who grew up around grifters and now works for drug runners in the Keys, hoping for an easier life. Lucia Caminos was taught to fight by her father and has recently been released from the Leonida Penitentiary. Rockstar's synopsis says the two are drawn into a criminal conspiracy across Leonida "when an easy score goes wrong."

LOVE's own framing

Some of the feature's descriptions are LOVE's, not quotes from Rockstar. LOVE describes Lucia as someone who wants a better life and won't let anything stop her, and Jason as a man whose circumstances keep deciding for him. The magazine calls their story "Bonnie and Clyde-style."

LOVE also says Lucia is the series' first playable female protagonist with a voice, a backstory and leading dialogue. That is LOVE's claim, not Rockstar's.

Humphries on the satire

Humphries told LOVE that Leonida, a state where great wealth meets unchecked ambition, is "a pressure cooker for all kinds of insanity." A version of today's world, he said, "has to be more over the top, more insane, more in your face."

Ambrosia, as LOVE describes it

LOVE's feature visits Ambrosia, which the magazine says draws on Clewiston and Lake Okeechobee. In LOVE's description, a sign there reads "Vote Erin Henshaw," sponsored by the sugar company. LOVE also mentions a campaign robocall, a radio commercial, a political talk show and "the culture wars playing out on Leonida radio."

Those details are LOVE's, but the sign checks out: "Vote Erin Henshaw," under Allied Crystal's name, is legible on a yard sign in Rockstar's official screenshot Ambrosia 01. Rockstar's text does not mention Henshaw, so who Henshaw is and what the campaign is for are not confirmed. LOVE spells the company "Allied Crystals" where Rockstar's site and the sign say Allied Crystal. Rockstar's page for the region puts that sugar refinery at its center and a local biker gang in charge.

Rockstar has since named six of GTA 6's radio stations and says the full lineup runs from Classic Rock to Talk Radio, though it has not named a talk station. Its previews of the six play three songs each, and there are no full tracklists yet. Our radio stations guide has all six.

Horton on background dialogue

Horton, the Writing Director: Open World, told LOVE: "In a way, there is no 'background' in this game." He added: "There's just foreground you're not paying attention to right now."

Eight-week milestones and "no shortcuts"

Kotaku reported two more quotes from the print issue on Oct. 5. Nelson said the team builds the game through "a series of eight-week milestones," reviewing each one before planning the next. Horton: "There are no shortcuts when it comes to building a world like this."

The four images

Four new images of Jason and Lucia circulated on Oct. 2, credited by outlets to Rockstar Games and LOVE. They are not on rockstargames.com, and we did not find an official source for them, so we are not publishing them. Rockstar's own galleries are unchanged, and our screenshots page has the official set.

Buying the issue

Issue 27 has six covers, and GTA 6 is the sixth. LOVE's seller, KD Presse, lists that cover as "Artwork featuring Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos by Rockstar Games" and prices the issue at €25. On Oct. 7 the GTA cover variant showed as unavailable, and the listing said "GTA COVER shipping from end of October 2026."

For everything Rockstar has said about the cast, see our GTA 6 characters guide.

Update log

• Oct. 8, 2026: Rockstar named six radio stations a day after this story ran, so the radio line now says so. We also added that the "Vote Erin Henshaw" sign is legible in one of Rockstar's official screenshots.
• Oct. 8, 2026: The radio line had said Rockstar did not reveal what plays on the stations; its previews play three songs per station, so it now says so. We also name the screenshot with the Henshaw sign, Ambrosia 01, and cite it.