The release of Grand Theft Auto VI is still months away, but every piece of news about it is revving up the internet. The latest TikTok discourse is whether playing GTA 6 is considered “cheating” if you’re in a relationship.
The debate began when it came to light that the game has an optional system that lets players maintain a romantic relationship between the main characters, Jason and Lucia. Beyond completing missions together, players can also text, plan activities, hold hands, and (gasp!) kiss.
The fact that developing Jason and Lucia’s relationship is optional didn’t stop enraged TikTokkers from taking to the platform to express their discontent about this, and accuse men of cheating on their partners if they play.
“In absolutely no human way is my fiancé playing GTA 6,” TikTok user @diaryofasalesgirl posted, and also told other women not to let their partners play, either. “It’s cheating btw if he has a girlfriend in GTA 6,” another user, @ahhnuska, posted. A third TikTok user, @natalitovarr, even called the game “interactive porn.” (None of these creators responded to Mashable’s request for comment.)
Mashable spoke to Los Angeles-based sex and couples therapist, Ilana Grines, for the answer, and it’s not as simple as these videos make it seem.
What even is cheating, anyway?
There’s no one definition of cheating or infidelity. Grines told Mashable over the phone that it’s nuanced, and it’s actually up to each couple to come up with their own definition.
“In my clinical definition, infidelity isn’t just the presence of romance or sexual content,” she explained. “It’s much more about what the couple has agreed to, and whether this is something that’s being hidden or spoken about,” be it anything from flirting to pornography.
It’s important to bring it back to the specific couple: Have they talked about it? Have they agreed to specific limits and agreements, whether about the game or otherwise?
But here’s the thing: It’s not about what cheating means. Couples often get stuck here about what constitutes cheating instead of talking about the behavior underneath it, Grines said. What about the behavior — in this case, going on dates and texting a fictional character — bothers you?
Dig into what specifically feels like cheating, be it emotional time, nudity, sexual interaction, fantasy, or something else. “Once you identify that part that actually hurts, let’s negotiate some parameters around that for our relationship,” she said.
What the ‘GTA 6’ debate says about modern relationships
On the GTA 6 matter, Grines said, first and foremost, that she believes the argument is “TikTok bait.” (That would make sense, as the most viral videos calling it cheating have been counterbalanced with other enraged people explaining why it’s absolutely not cheating.)
But even beyond the virality, the thought that it’s cheating says something about modern relationships.
We’re going into unknown territory, Grines said, not just with video games, but with technology like AI chatbots. Sex and couples therapy in the age of AI is a big topic of conversation for her right now, and while GTA 6 is very different from interacting with a bot that can respond directly to you, the throughline is that couples are engaging in things we don’t have relational scripts for.
“We are trying to catch up to a world that’s rapidly changing, and it’s really important to have conversations about it, not only with ourselves but with our partners,” she said.
Because we’re in relationships alongside the emergence of new technology, it brings about feelings we may not have the language to talk about. We might jump to saying something is cheating when, really, we’re talking about something else.
If your boyfriend, as Jason, has to text Lucia back, and he does, and that bothers you because your boyfriend doesn’t text you back, are you really talking about the game? “Or are we talking about our own pain points, our own injuries that are not about a fictional romance, rather our own romance,” Grines said.
Talking about the game may be easier than talking about your relationship. After falling down the “is GTA 6 cheating” TikTok rabbit hole, Grines’s understanding is that the people calling the game “cheating” were really picking up their own sources of hurt and translating them through the game, and not having the ability to say what they want to work on in the relationship.
Grines’s advice for those people is to talk about the game before it comes out and to recognize that their feelings aren’t ridiculous. But if you’re not able to have a conversation before the game releases, she does think it could create relationship problems.
So…is ‘GTA 6’ cheating?
On the direct question of whether GTA 6 is cheating, Grines wouldn’t inherently consider it that way. Though again, it depends on what each couple agrees to.
But, also, a growing trend over the last few years (in my opinion, not Grines’s), is that cheating has become the ultimate crime. It seems that every few months, the internet comes out with its pitchforks (fingers) to vilify people who appear to be committing infidelity, as in the 2025 Coldplay concert scandal and the more recent viral kiss between lawyers in Central Park.
Cheating is typically considered wrong in monogamous couples (and even non-monogamous people can cheat, depending on the relationship’s agreement), but the way social media goes after people whom the majority believes are cheating has become absurd. They try — and often succeed — in getting them fired from their jobs. They might get their homes doxxed online. They and their families are harassed.
The internet has done similar to those for actions that are not acts of betrayal, like cheating, but the mob mentality continues to confound. And cheating isn’t illegal! Maybe it’s increased moralization. Maybe it’s schadenfreude. Maybe it’s boredom. Whatever it is, this frenzy over whether texting a pixelated woman is cheating might stem from this pattern.
On the increased moralization of cheating, Grines said, we have a need to “insert ourselves into other people’s relationships and cast judgment when we have no knowledge of them.”
“We live in a generation where things that feel really big are not spoken about in a way of recovery, [but] rather in a way of shame,” she continued, “and shame doesn’t allow for us to actually make changes.”
So, is GTA 6 cheating? Neither Grines nor I think so. But the debate itself is masking something a lot deeper.