A rival got to a Grand Theft Auto VI parody before Rockstar Games did, which would've been the punchline, except it's not, for the wrong reasons. Apparently, some leaked footage from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 features a GTA 6 spoof called "Sin District" that plays on TV screens during the game's New York campaign section.
This would've been nice and all except it's easy to tell that the footage is AI-generated. You can check it out for yourself here.
The nod itself is obvious. "Sin District" uses the same neon, Vice City-styled look, a clear wink at the upcoming Grand Theft Auto. Besides, to parody GTA is tradition and on paper, a Call of Duty jab at GTA 6 is the kind of crossover fans usually enjoy. This one hit differently because the game's developers couldn't be bothered to make an effort to create an actual parody instead of letting AI do it for them.
What could've been the obvious joke writing itself that we really got a GTA 6 parody in Modern Warfare 4 before GTA 6 now takes the backseat to a much larger issue.
GTA keeps showing up in other games
Game | The GTA nod |
|---|---|
Minecraft | The "Follow the train, CJ" splash text |
Mass Effect 2 | A "Grim Terminus Alliance" parody of GTA |
Marvel's Spider-Man | A Niko and Roman nod to GTA IV |
Watch Dogs 2 | A recreation of San Andreas's Grove Street |
Modern Warfare 4 | A GTA 6 parody, "Sin District," made with AI |
GTA's cultural pull shows up everywhere, but this one stands out for the wrong reason.
In comparison, Grand Theft Auto V parodied military shooters with "Righteous Slaughter: Hood Ops," a sharp, handcrafted send-up of exactly the kind of game Modern Warfare 4 is. Rockstar set the bar for this sort of cross-parody with original art and writing. An AI-generated version of the reverse looks lazy next to it, which is a big reason for the hostile reaction.
It also doesn't help that Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar have made it a point to say GTA 6 uses no generative AI and was built by hand, down to its animation and world detail.
To be fair to Call of Duty, GTA references in other games are usually harmless fun. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas alone has been nodded to in everything from Minecraft's splash text to Watch Dogs 2's Grove Street recreation and Grand Theft Auto IV gets name-checked in Marvel's Spider-Man.
Fans loved these tributes because you could see that the developers put much thought and effort into them. The AI slop in Modern Warfare 4 do these types of GTA parodies a disservice.
It also says something that a competitor is parodying GTA 6 this hard before launch. The game's gravity is strong enough that other studios are referencing it on the way to its own release, the same cultural pull that has it bending the entire industry's November. A Call of Duty shout-out is just the latest proof of it.
Rockstar will almost certainly fire back in its own style eventually, by hand, with a joke that bites. Until then, the internet will continue to have a field day because a rival spoofed the biggest game of the year with the one tool its maker wanted nothing to do with.