Grand Theft Auto 6 Might Be Too Good

At a time when the house of cards that is the old games industry looks set to topple, Grand Theft Auto 6 will send standards skyrocketing. On the surface that might seem like a good thing. It isn’t.

We saw it with Baldur’s Gate 3. The “why can’t” conversations. Why can’t big publishers do it if a relatively small indie can? Why can’t RPG makers focus on this or that, instead of this or that. When something hits and hits big, it can change the landscape completely. Expectations become unrealistic.

But unlike Baldur’s Gate 3 – which is vaguely attainable so long as you change your priorities – the only company capable of making a game like Grand Theft Auto 6 is making Grand Theft Auto 6. It’s not unique skills, it’s not some special secret sauce unique to Rockstar, it’s time and expected sales. This is going to be the biggest media launch of all time. A Crackdown or a Saint’s Row or a Mafia made with the same detail, money and time would not survive.

With the second GTA trailer released this week, we saw a massive world, with incredible looking people and stunning locations. This is a graphical powerhouse and, being a Grand Theft Auto game, it’ll be huge too. Expect countless hours of gameplay across rich and diverse locations, with plenty to distract from the main story. It’s been 13 years since the last game in this series, and seven years since Red Dead Redemption 2. The latter was also easily one of the best games of the last generation, setting standards that other publishers have yet to meet.

In and of itself, this is tremendous. I’ll be there day one. But for the wide industry? The news isn’t as rosy.

Grand Theft Auto: Stealing Space

The industry looks very different than it did in 2018. It looks very different than it did in 2013. Today’s gamers largely sit in forever games, spending countless pounds on skins and sprays. The gaming industry is more successful than it’s ever been, but that doesn’t necessarily spread to sales of individual games. You only need to glance at a list of high profile bombs from the last few years to see that investing time and money into a title is very risky business.

What happens when Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out? Firstly, it’s a forever game. The previous entry sits at the top of every chart thanks to people rebuying it for GTA Online points. It’s another black hole to soak up people’s time.

But more than that, it’ll show what a game is really capable of with current hardware. With fresh standards set, everything else will seem to fall short unless it can differentiate itself so radically from GTA that it manages to stand alone.

There are some people who suggest this game might save the industry. It’ll show that games can be profitable and that investors will come running back. More consoles sold will mean the GTA glow will trickle down to everybody else. Happy times all around.

But it’s not that simple. No single part of this is guaranteed, and much of it feels like wishful thinking. One thing is certain: publishers are going to have to work a lot harder to avoid negative comparisons with what will likely end up one of the most popular games of all time. It’s not fair, but it’s going to happen.