The “Florida Joker” responded to Rockstar regarding the reference to him in the first trailer for GTA VI, and former Rockstar developer Mike York praised the trailer at length.
The “Florida Joker” reacted to what appears to be a reference to him in the first Grand Theft Auto VI trailer. The trailer for GTA VI left fans with many questions, especially considering the many references to Florida that appear to be in it.
The trailer for GTA VI was released on December 4, causing quite a stir in the video game industry.
Based on what we’ve seen in the trailer, it seems that part of the game takes place in a memorable location called Vice City, which old GTA players will easily recognize.
Among other things, fans also noticed a number of Florida memes and real-life references in the game’s trailer. One such reference recently attracted the attention of a popular Florida personality.
The trailer featured a character with distinctive facial tattoos that bear a striking resemblance to Lawrence Sullivan, also known as the “Florida Joker.” He is a tattoo model who gained widespread attention online after his police photo went viral in 2017. This led to Sullivan’s response, in which he expressed his belief that the character was inspired by his own unique appearance. In the video, first shared on TikTok, he addressed Rockstar directly, saying, “GTA, we need to talk.”
While it remains uncertain whether Rockstar deliberately mimicked Sullivan’s image, the reference did not go unnoticed in the subtle details of the GTA VI trailer, sparking debate among fans about the possible inspiration behind the character’s design.
Sullivan’s reaction raises some questions about the creative choices made by game developers and the challenges of the game’s focus on social media. The ambiguity surrounding Rockstar’s intentions leaves room for speculation and fan theories. The trailer left fans with many questions and high expectations for a game that won’t be seen until 2025.
Mike York couldn’t get enough of the GTA VI trailer
Following the release of GTA VI’s record-breaking trailer, there were just as many reactions from a wide variety of content creators and personalities.
In this thread, former Rockstar New England animator Mike York posted his own reaction as a former employee of the studio. York worked on GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 for six years before leaving Rockstar. (Most recently, he worked on God of War Ragnarok in the final stretch before release.) He seems to be extremely impressed with the visual quality achieved in GTA VI.
“It’s not just a bigger city. Everything in the city is expanded on. What I mean by that is there’s more people, there’s more cars, there’s more plant life, there’s more animals, there’s more hair on each character. Every single thing has been reworked and developed and pushed. If you look here in this little cutscene, they even have little particles in the air floating through. This is an in-game cut scene.”
“A lot of the games that you see are done with cinematics and they cut to a scene and it’s not all in-game, it’s kind of pre-rendered, but everything that you see in a GTA game is all done in-game. Every single cut scene.”
“Everything looks very good for in-game! I’m really impressed with how far they’re bringing the graphics for an in-game kind of version of this because a lot of times when you see a cinematic this is not that. When you play this game, it’s really going to look like this, it’s going to look just like this. It’s going to be incredible. I cannot wait, because the artists over there really know how to push the consoles and the hardware to the limits with their level of detail (LODs).”
“Like, this is just a normal character that’s in the game, an NPC or whatever, but look how realistic they look. Now, usually the odd NPCs and somebody who’s just kind of milling about throughout the game that’s not a main character, it doesn’t look this good and that’s because they’re pushing the limits right now on this new hardware for PlayStation 5.”