Last month, a BBC report about players falling in love with game characters was widely mocked. The article posed the question: "Does developing a virtual romance in a game count as cheating on a real-life relationship?" The vast majority of respondents answered no, with only 4% of men and 7% of women considering it cheating.
At the time, everyone found this question absurd and criticized both the article and its author. But the reality might not be as far-fetched as people thought—during the预热 phase of Grand Theft Auto VI, Google searches for "romance in games" and "falling in love with Lucia" saw a significant surge.
The marketing campaign for Grand Theft Auto VI is currently in full swing: trailers and gameplay screenshots are regularly updated, Rockstar's promotional events have swept through Miami, and online discussion and anticipation have reached their peak. Both official materials and large-scale leaks have made players increasingly familiar with the two protagonists, Jason and Lucia, with leaked clips even including nude scenes of Lucia.
Interestingly, the game's marketing cycle closely coincides with the rise in searches for "romance in games." Google Trends data shows that from November 2021 to around May 2025, search volume for this keyword remained stable, but May 2025 marked the release of Rockstar's second trailer for GTA VI. Since then, related searches have skyrocketed, nearly tripling to this day.
However, correlation does not imply causation, so we overlaid data from other keywords for verification, and the results matched perfectly: as searches for "romance in games" increased, searches for "falling in love with Lucia" and "does game romance count as cheating" also climbed in tandem. It seems players are mentally preparing themselves in advance, afraid they might truly fall for the GTA VI female protagonist.
Alongside the rise in search volume, many users on social media who haven't even played the game yet have openly stated they already like the character. Grand Theft Auto VI is destined to be a once-in-a-lifetime event in the gaming world; I've never seen so many people worry about "emotionally cheating" before.