On November 18 I turn 40. On November 19, Grand Theft Auto VI comes out. Those two facts have been sitting next to each other on the calendar long enough that I stopped pretending they were separate events.

A month ago my wife asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. No hesitation. I told her to let me play GTA VI. We’ve done the parties. We’ve done the get-togethers. This year I want the house quiet, the controller in my hands, and as many uninterrupted hours as a man with a wife, three kids, a dog, and a job can reasonably steal. The kids already know what’s happening that week. Nobody is scheduling anything on top of it.

I bought an Xbox Series X for this game. Not for the library, not for Game Pass, not because I needed another box under the TV. For this. I also bought the Ultimate Edition, because if you’re going to clear the calendar for one release, you don’t cheap out on the version that comes with the extra cars and the private garage. Pre-load opens November 12. I’ll start the download that day. At midnight when the 18th becomes the 19th, I’ll be in.

I put serious time into GTA V. Years of it. Los Santos was the first open world that felt like a place I actually lived in instead of a level I was passing through, and I loved it. Custom cars, the radio, the stupid side jobs, the way the city kept going whether you were on a mission or not. Red Dead Redemption 2 is still my favorite game of all time. Rockstar let you live as a cowboy, and I stayed in that world long after the credits. GTA V is the one that taught me what a modern Rockstar city could be. VI is the same studio, a return to Vice City, and a map they say is about three times the size of V’s. I’m assuming it becomes the new favorite and that I’ll still be in it for a good chunk of the next decade. That’s not hype. That’s the pattern.

What’s confirmed is enough to justify the Series X by itself. The state is Leonida, split into six regions: Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga National Park. You play as Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, and you can switch between them almost anytime. They can stay partners, or the relationship can turn romantic if you put the work in. It doesn’t hand you a stat bonus either way. They text each other about ordinary things. One of them can drive while you ride and listen to the radio, or shoot out the passenger window in a chase. Safehouses have routines, the way the camp did in Red Dead.

The world is denser than V, not just bigger. Weather is localized. Clouds actually move across the state, and hurricanes and tropical storms can hit. There are more than 170 animal species: alligators, manatees, flamingos, iguanas, monkeys, sharks. You can study them the way you catalogued wildlife in Red Dead. Six-star wanted levels are back, with a Heat system on top. Cops build a picture of what you were wearing and where you were seen, so a wardrobe change actually matters. Hotwiring every car with one button is gone. Some vehicles stay locked until you get the tools. Crime only gets called in if somebody sees it.

And then the stuff I actually want to mess with once the story lets go of my hand. Base jumping. Scuba. Kayaking. Jet skis and airboats. Street races and off-road races. A gym. Mini golf. A zoo. A ride-share app that doubles as fast travel, where you can talk to the other passengers or just doomscroll the in-game social feed on the way. Planes. Parachutes. A garage. The opening hours will still be on rails, and in-game cash will gate what I can do. That’s fine. I’ve waited this long.

People will say the usual thing. You’re 40. Why are you still playing video games? My answer is short. I don’t care what you think.

I started on Super Mario Bros. in the early ’90s. Side-scrolling, a handful of sprites, a flagpole at the end of the level, and a bedtime that ended the session whether the castle was cleared or not. I’ve watched the medium go from that to maps the size of states, cities with working economies, weather that can shut a coastline down, and characters who text you because they locked the house. I’m not required to stop because it’s a school night anymore. Getting to play the far end of that progression, as an adult, is the point.

The other objection is that it’s a waste of time next to “real” entertainment. Watching sports and television is fine. I do both. The difference is participation. A game makes you solve problems, read a map, manage money, and decide what kind of trouble you’re willing to buy. Passive screens let you stare and check out. I’d rather be in the thing.

Even if games aren’t your thing, this one is worth a look just to see where entertainment technology actually is. The launch is going to pull a ridiculous number of people offline at the same time. Offices will be lighter. Group chats will go quiet. For a week or two, a huge slice of the culture is going to be in Leonida instead of wherever they usually are. That’s not a small product drop. That’s a temporary shift in how a lot of people spend their evenings.

I’ll be one of them. Forty years old on the 18th, Series X warmed up, Ultimate Edition installed, no party planned. If you need me the week of November 18, you already know where I am.

Keep reading: The Cool Box: Relics of a Man’s Life · On Aging: Realizing What You’ll Never Be · Contact