Grand Theft Auto V: One of the most depressing video games ever made (ending spoilers)
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But Grand Theft Auto doesn’t have any serious questions to ask. Nor does it really have any serious answers. Every single person in the beautiful world of Grand Theft Auto is an absolute douchebag; the game’s story is a parade of loudmouth goons. All of the villains are the absolute worst human beings you can imagine, and all of the heroes are even worse. Everybody talks too much and nobody has anything to say. Imagine if the Saturday Night Live sketch “the Californians” never ended, and you have most of the spoken drama in Grand Theft Auto V.
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But Grand Theft Auto V badly wants the drama to matter. It wants to make a point about America and capitalism and the difficulty of balancing professional success with personal happiness and Hollywood and authenticity and “authenticity.” The problem is, the only point Grand Theft Auto has to make is a point so aggressively cynical that — when you finally reach the end of the game’s main story — it is incredibly depressing.
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This is the endpoint of the game’s narrative: It begins in chaos and ends in chaos. I guess you could argue that this is supposed to be funny, but Grand Theft Auto V doesn’t really feel like a funny game. It feels like an angry game. It hates women and it hates men, it hates rich people doing yoga, and it hates poor people who can’t get their lives together. It hates liberals and it hates conservatives, and it doesn’t take either of them seriously. When I reviewed GTA V after playing about 1/3 of it I compared it to South Park, but the more I played, the more I realized that comparison wasn’t quite accurate. South Park is incredibly cynical also, but it takes its cynicism seriously: It attempts to find some kind of logical path towards something like Truth.
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What I’m getting at it is that the makers of Grand Theft Auto V seem to have the David Chase/Dan Harmon complex of viewing their own fans with extreme distaste. Bizarrely, this is probably why Grand Theft Auto V is so much better than, say, the upcoming Call of Duty: Whatever. But it’s also why the new game — which is filled with sun-dappled imagery — feels ultimately hermetically sealed and deadening. A lot of people will probably argue that the downer endings of Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto IV are more “depressing” than any of the possible closers for GTA V. But those endings were rooted in some kind of believable emotional through line — in a humanity that the game took seriously. Grand Theft Auto V thinks all humans are inhuman, and it couldn’t really care less.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/10/10/grand-theft-auto-v-ending/
I haven't played a second of GTA V but thought this article was great and interesting.
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The funny thing is, though, all three endings basically come to the same conclusion: Nothing matters. Nothing really changes. If you kill Trevor, then Michael angrily tells his student: “Surviving is winning. Everything else is bulls—. Fairy tales spun by people afraid to look life in the eye. Whatever it takes, kid: Survive.” If you kill Michael, Franklin calls up one of his friends and describes his entire experience in the game thusly: “S— been real crazy, homey. But it’s dealt with now.”
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I didn't the sense that he was offended, especially over the fact that they're Americans. He uses the Red Dead & GTA IV example in a way that even though the ending is downbeat, it has redeeming qualities. This is just empty.
This review actually makes me want to play the game more rather than less because a story w/ empty characters & empty story can make a point and more depressing can actually be better. I think the ending of a movie like Blow Out(though the 2 main characters weren't empty but John Lithglow's character certainly was and the world in the film as well) are better than endings in almost every other movie.
Thanks for your point, I did want to get feedback from those that played. 
