Criminal Profile

Both playable characters carry their own Criminal Profile, a running record of how that character goes about the work. Rockstar has gone out of its way to say what it isn't. There's no morality meter here, and there's no virtuous branch to steer toward.

Grand Theft Auto has sat near the middle of the argument about morality systems in games for two decades without ever really having one. Earlier games handed you a wanted level, which measured how much attention you'd attracted, and left it there. A profile that keeps track of how you did a job, as well as whether it worked, is new ground for the series.

What it appears to track

The system sits next to the evidence-based wanted system, and it's hard to talk about one without the other. If the police build a case from your face, your car and your weapon, then the way you choose to do a job leaves a trail that describes you. Somebody who takes hostages, somebody who goes in masked and quiet, and somebody who shoots their way back out to the car are three different criminals, and the game now has somewhere to write that down.

Professional at one end, Irredeemable at the other

Edge's cover feature (issue 430, out 29 October) is the first proper description of the scale itself. It comes from a demo Rockstar North ran for the magazine. Edge reports that the profile runs from Professional to Irredeemable, with an angel icon at one end and a devil at the other.

What pushes you along it is how you handle a situation, more than how many crimes you commit. Knocking someone out, intimidating them or talking them down all count toward Professional. Shooting first pushes you the other way.

So yes, an angel and a devil look a lot like a morality meter. But going by Edge's account, the thing being scored is method. A careful armed robber who never pulls the trigger sits closer to Professional than somebody who opens fire in a car park. That's where Focus, which marks limbs you can shoot to disarm, and the suppressive fire Rob Nelson has described start to matter.

Edge also says Rockstar told it the profile affects how Jason and Lucia's story plays out. It doesn't say which missions or outcomes change.

Jason and Lucia keep separate records

Because Jason and Lucia hold separate profiles, the two records can drift apart. That's a deliberate choice in a game built around switching between two leads who are in a relationship with each other, where GTA V's crew was closer to a business arrangement. Grand Theft Auto V had three protagonists with fixed personalities and separate skill bars. Here the characters stay the same people whatever you do, and the record is of what you did with them.

What isn't known

Rockstar has confirmed the system exists and what it isn't. Edge has since described the two ends of the scale and some of what feeds it, but Rockstar hasn't published the full list of inputs, whether you'll see more than the two icons, or exactly what the profile changes in the story. We also don't know if the two leads' profiles drift apart in practice, since Edge's account doesn't say. If you read anything describing specific thresholds or unlocks, that's somebody's guess.

Related: the wanted system, character switching.