GTA 6 Criminal Profile Explained: All Honor Ranks in Grand Theft Auto VI

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has never encouraged players to behave humanely. In most GTA games, from GTA San Andreas to GTA 5, you might steal a car, rob a store, and accidentally flatten out half a sidewalk full of pedestrians. GTA 6, however, lets you put a little more thought behind the kind of criminal you want to become. There is a new criminal profile system in GTA 6, which has understandably drawn comparisons to RDR 2.

So, here is a detailed explanation of the GTA 6 Criminal Profile mechanic, including the honor ranks and how you must plan your heists before the Leonida cops ruin your evening.

What is the GTA 6 Criminal Profile?

The criminal profile in GTA 6 is a new system that tracks how Jason and Lucia conduct themselves as criminals.

Note that there is a neat distinction between the criminal profile in GTA 6 and the honor system in Red Dead Redemption 2. While the latter is based on Arthur Morgan’s morality, Rockstar has taken a different approach this time around. The Criminal Profile in GTA 6 is based on how professional you are as a criminal.

Get this straight: you don’t become a saint by rescuing some kittens one afternoon, while spending the last night stealing a bank and shooting half the room. It’s GTA 6, and you will be expected to take on some dirty jobs.

The criminal profile is a metric that measures how clean your crime was. There is no good or evil in this metric. In simple terms, if you leave the crime scene without a trace, you’re an expert; but if you leave after a bloodbath, you’re an irredeemable psychopath.

The criminal profile mechanic in GTA 6 also appears to be separate from Jason and Lucia’s relationship system. While the relationship measures how their bond develops, the criminal profile reflects their behavior. Yet, both can influence their story that develops over time.

GTA 6 Criminal Profile States and Honor Ranks

Unlike the more familiar honor system, the Criminal Profile in Grand Theft Auto 6 works through five different states instead of a constantly visible bar. Four of these five stages can be reversed, but the final one is permanent. The five states in the criminal profile are as follows, and they are represented by different angel and devil GTA 6 icons.

Professional

Professional is the most controlled state in the criminal profile. If you’re in this stage, you must be avoiding unnecessary escalation while completing the missions. Here, you don’t shoot everybody in the room; rather, you intimidate or restrain them using a weapon in GTA 6 and complete the job.

Rob Nelson described this kind of approach in terms of restraint and control. Here, the idea is to accomplish the job without creating casualties or chaos.

Aggressive

This is where the gloves start to come off. Here, you’re still capable of controlling situations, but you’re using force when it’s unnecessary. If you repeatedly choose physical force when a calmer approach was available, you push Jason or Lucia to this state.

The difference between a Professional and an Aggressive state is knowing the difference between violence being an option and treating it as the first thing on the menu.

Violent

The Violent state is where using excessive force doesn’t feel like an option anymore. It has become a part of your daily missions. So, if you’re routinely killing people who aren’t necessary targets and escalating the encounters to create more destruction, you will be moving away from the Aggressive state to being Violent.

Rockstar has already shown how GTA 6’s gore and dismemberment are significantly more brutal, so turning every robbery into a massacre can create harsh consequences.

Psycho

This is the extreme end of the known criminal profile states in GTA 6. You might reach this stage when you’re consistently causing excessive violence and chaotic behavior.

If your everyday heists and other missions include going far beyond what is necessary, you’re probably heading toward this stage. Repeatedly killing people without a reason, attacking those who pose no threat, or turning minor encounters into shootouts could push your character toward this end.

For example, Rockstar is adding K9 units to GTA 6’s police force, so if you shoot at the Alsatian, your criminal profile rank will take a nosedive, similar to killing bounty hunter bloodhounds in Red Dead Redemption 2.

So, it can include anything like turning robberies into a massacre or ramming over people with your new car in GTA 6. However, once you reach the rank beyond Psycho, there’s no coming back.

Irredeemable

Beyond the four reversible states, Rockstar has confirmed an Irredeemable state you can reach if you like to play the classic old-school GTA. This is the point of no return for both Jason and Lucia that permanently breaks the criminal profile as you know it.

Once you reach this stage, it will become permanent for that playthrough. Rockstar says that your actions are supposed to have more weight, and some consequences cannot be reversed instantly with a handful of good deeds.

So, unlike Red Dead Redemption 2, you can’t just finish half of the GTA 6 map and then repair your reputation by greeting strangers for five minutes. Once you reach Irredeemable with either Jason or Lucia, you’ll need to start a new playthrough to recover your criminal profile rank.

What Raises the Criminal Profile in GTA 6

One of the most important things is to understand that committing crimes won’t automatically make your criminal profile worse. The gameplay scenarios in the GTA 6 extended look are proof that the way you carry out your crimes is going to affect your criminal profile.

For example, you carry out a restrained approach that includes completing a robbery without killing people, avoiding collateral damage, and leaving once you’ve completed the objective. The money is secured, the escape route is clear, and there is minimal evidence of Jason and Lucia being at the crime scene. This is a completely Professional approach, and it won’t raise the criminal profile stage.

Whereas, if you see a GTA 6 NPC with a weapon and violently confront them, decide to knock out the cashier who gave you a funny look, and begin a war in the neighborhood, it will drag your profile to the Aggressive or even the Violent stages.

Does Criminal Profile Affect Jason and Lucia Differently?

Yes, another interesting detail about the GTA 6 criminal profile is that Jason and Lucia do not share a single criminal profile. Each character can develop their own state.

This means you might make Jason a highly disciplined professional while developing Lucia with a more violent reputation, or vice versa. This can be interesting, because Rockstar has already given the two separate identities. The approach might suit them more, with Jason being a trained army veteran and Lucia being a fighter.

Rockstar has confirmed that your actions will influence how Jason and Lucia’s story unfolds depending on how you play. So it’ll be particularly interesting to see how the game plays out when one protagonist reaches an Irredeemable rank while the other stays at one of the four reversible states.

This makes the GTA 6 criminal profile more interesting than simply slapping an honor meter. That concludes our guide on GTA 6’s criminal profile. If you want to learn more about other major mechanics, the GTA 6 wanted system guide is there to help you out.