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Rockstar is set to introduce a new parody to Grand Theft Auto 6 as part of the A Safehouse in the Hills.
GTA Wiki shared this information dump on Twitter:
The latest trailer for the A Safehouse in the Hills update for #GTAOnline reveals a new company called “KnoWay” that operates robotaxi vans.
It parodies the real-world Waymo, an American self-driving taxi company.
They then linked to their Wiki page on KnoWay, which you can read here.
What’s The Deal With Waymo and KnoWay?
There’s an obvious pun in the name KnoWay, as it sounds like the words no way. GTA Wiki argues this is a criticism of autonomous self-driving taxis that may not go to the correct destination.
But we would argue this could also be a statement from the potential customer. Because some riders would say no way to riding an autonomous taxi.
The 411 On Waymo
For those who may not remember, Waymo was originally a Google X lab project, dating all the way back in 2009. The autonomous vehicles themselves stemmed from technology Google used in their global street mapping project to create Google Street View.
In 2016, Waymo was officially spun off from Google, but remains part of their parent company, Alphabet. They launched their driverless services in 2020.
Obviously, Waymo has always been controversial for the potential safety concerns. The company cites their vehicles have lower statistical accidents than human drivers, but that hasn’t stopped them from facing criticism – or legal challenges.
While autonomous cars and robotaxis are certainly interesting to talk about in real life, we have to go back to Grand Theft Auto and ask one question about KnoWay:
So Can We “Grand Theft Auto” These KnoWay Cars?
Surely we were not the only ones thinking this. After all, this is the name Rockstar chose for the franchise.
We haven’t heard of many incidents of people trying to hijack self-driving cars in real life yet. But that only highlights just how much fun it would be to try this as a mission in a fictional video game (not real life).
There’s no clear connection to A Safehouse in the Hills and self-driving cars, at least right now. So we have to imagine that Rockstar thought to add this into the game so that players could have fun with them.
This could even lead to a campaign where the player (or maybe Michael De Santa himself) takes on KnoWay themselves. So this could be more interesting than it appears at first glance.
