Spoiler Warning: Minor spoilers may be present for the Grand Theft Auto series.
One of the first subjects I ever wrote about here on the website was Grand Theft Auto 6. That was all the way back in 2019 – and I said at the time that Grand Theft Auto V felt like it had been hanging around for a little too long! Suffice to say that official news about Grand Theft Auto 6 is long, long overdue – and before we go any further, I think we should acknowledge that.
Rockstar has milked Grand Theft Auto V dry, and the company’s obsession with keeping that game going across three entire console generations has clearly come at the expense of other projects. Red Dead Redemption II’s online mode didn’t get the support it should have, and the less said about the appalling Grand Theft Auto Trilogy remaster the better. Even Grand Theft Auto V’s single-player mode was sacrificed at the altar of Rockstar’s obsession with online multiplayer: the game never received the single-player DLC that had been planned back in 2013.
So we come, belatedly, to Grand Theft Auto 6. The game has one heck of a legacy to live up to – and only time will tell if it will be up to the task.
If you’ve followed the story online or on social media, chances are you’ll already be aware of the big leak that hit Grand Theft Auto 6 a year or so ago. Early footage of the game made its way online and has been doing the rounds for months, so in that sense I wasn’t stunned or blown away by any of the reveals in the trailer; I’d seen the outline of the game already. And I have to say up-front that there are a couple of pretty big disappointments.
The first is the game’s setting. Returning to Vice City is just not what I’d hoped to see; it’s too samey and too similar to Grand Theft Auto V’s Los Santos. Both are sunlit, tropical cities by the beach, both are set in the modern day, and while there will undoubtedly be improvements mechanically and visually from the previous entry in the series, I’m just not convinced at this stage that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be able to truly differentiate itself from its predecessor and stand out in the way it needs to.
For me, the game’s world, time period, and overall setting are hurdles that it will have to overcome – and they’re totally unnecessary ones. Grand Theft Auto V stood apart from its predecessor by hopping across the country, leaving a New York City stand-in behind. Red Dead Redemption II likewise made some big decisions in terms of setting, choosing a setting inspired by parts of the Rocky Mountains, Midwest, and Deep South instead of simply returning to the world of the first game. And both titles stood out because of those decisions.
A few months ago I saw a poll somewhere on social media. Unscientific, I know, but I think the results were interesting. The question posed was “where should Grand Theft Auto 6 be set?” and while Vice City put in a creditable showing, it ended up in a distant second place behind the preferred option: “somewhere new.” At least some players agree with me, then: it would’ve been preferable if Grand Theft Auto 6 could’ve been set in a new location, perhaps somewhere other than a sundrenched coastal city decked out in palm trees.
There’s also a case to be made, I’d argue, that teasing a game that won’t be ready for potentially two full years – barring any major delays – is too early. It’s not as bad as something like The Elder Scrolls VI, which was teased back in 2018 and may not be ready until 2028, but there’s still a lot of work to be done on Grand Theft Auto 6. The trailer, as you can see, wasn’t showing bona fide gameplay but rather a combination of “in-engine footage” and CGI.
Rockstar has been notorious in the games industry for its culture of “crunch” – the borderline-abusive practice of forcing staff to work ridiculously long hours in the run-up to a title’s launch. This happened with Red Dead Redemption II – and although Rockstar has pledged to do better, promising gamers a deadline of 2025 for Grand Theft Auto 6′s release could lead to the same old problems all over again. Although the end of 2025 may seem a long way off, developing a game as large and complex as Grand Theft Auto 6 will surely be a time-consuming and difficult process, and even with some work having already begun, two years – at the very most – isn’t actually all that long when it comes to modern game development. We’ll have to watch this space for leaks from within Rockstar to see how bad “crunch” and working conditions get.
One major disappointment for me, as someone who plays on PC, is the apparent lack of a simultaneous PC release. Rockstar’s official press release only mentioned Xbox Series and PlayStation 5 consoles, so reading between the lines that seems to leave out PC. Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption II both launched on PC more than a year after landing on home consoles, so Rockstar has done this before… but what are the executives spending all of the billions of dollars that they made from Grand Theft Auto V on if not making sure the new game will be available to everyone who wants to play it?
Cutting off PC players is a mistake – one that I hope can be rectified before launch. Delaying the game on console by a few months, if necessary, would be worth it to get that simultaneous release. Practically every other major release from AAA publishers can manage this, and with Rockstar’s insane financial resources, there’s no reason why they can’t, too. Trying to spin this as some kind of “point of principle” in favour of home consoles over PC is just… stupid. That argument made no sense to me when Rockstar has tried to pull it in the past and it makes no sense now. It’s the company cheaping out, hoping to get away with spending less money on development and testing – and nothing more.
So… more Grand Theft Auto. That’s basically the takeaway from this trailer for me. More of the same from a series that could’ve tried something a little different. Having a woman protagonist is great, and I hope that the writers will create an engrossing single-player story that will be fun to see unfold. I’m not a multiplayer gamer, so that’s the side of Grand Theft Auto 6 that I’m interested in.
As for the setting, I have to say I’m disappointed. I knew that this was coming based on the leaked gameplay, but I still half-wondered if Rockstar might’ve had time to change things up and go for something a bit different. I guess the company has decided to not rock the boat too much in light of the rampant success of Grand Theft Auto V… but to me, it feels that Rockstar is playing things a little too safe. I’d have liked to see a bit more boldness in choosing a genuinely different setting – perhaps a city based on Chicago or Washington DC, or setting the game in a time period like the ’70s or the ’90s. That would’ve helped Grand Theft Auto 6 develop its own identity. That’s already a tough task, as the game will be living in its predecessor’s shadow for a long time, but it’s one Rockstar seems to have made more difficult with some of these creative decisions.
Maybe I’m showing my age here, but part of what I felt worked best about Vice City was its ’80s setting. Leaning into the likes of Scarface and Miami Vice for inspiration really took that game to a different thematic place, feeling distinct from Grand Theft Auto III. Taking Vice City out of the ’80s and into the modern day is perhaps a bit of a challenge; there’s an open question as to how well Rockstar’s Miami stand-in will work in a contemporary setting. That’s a concern, too.
Based on what we saw in the trailer, I feel that it’s actually difficult to judge how the game might play. No real gameplay was shown, after all. But knowing that Rockstar is playing it safe with Grand Theft Auto 6, I think we can reasonably make the assumption that it won’t look, feel, or play much different from its predecessor. There will be guns to shoot, cars to jack, and an open world filled with crime to get stuck into.
For me, Red Dead Redemption II is Rockstar’s magnum opus. If I dared to dream, I’d say that I’d hope Grand Theft Auto 6 could reach comparable heights… but I don’t want to put too much pressure on the developers. Some games are genuinely once-in-a-lifetime masterpieces, and asking for “another one like that” probably ain’t gonna happen – as much as we might want it to! So what I guess I’m trying to say is that I want to set appropriate expectations for Grand Theft Auto 6 and not over-hype the game to the moon and back. There will undoubtedly be a lot of excitement for the game as its launch gets closer… but keeping that in check as much as possible is absolutely worth trying. Don’t forget what happened with Cyberpunk 2077! Or Starfield.
To end on a positive note, the release of a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is something I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to. I played the first game back in the ’90s – along with its London-based spin-off – and had a blast with it at the time. Watching the series make the transition to 3D was also fun to see in the early 2000s. So I’ve been a fan of the series for a long time.
The trailer showed off some impressive-looking environments and character models; on par, at least, with those seen in Red Dead Redemption II. Nothing blew me away – but by the time the game has been fully-built and is in our hands, I daresay we can expect high graphical fidelity and a visually pretty title.
So that’s all for now, I guess. I’ll be waiting to see whether Rockstar can be bothered to launch the game on PC in 2025 – if not, it might be 2026 or beyond before I’m able to get my hands on it.
Assuming I live that long, I hope you’ll check back in for a review – and in the meanwhile, if we get more information, another trailer, or more juicy details about Grand Theft Auto 6, I’ll do my best to cover it here on the website.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently in development and will be released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles in 2025. Grand Theft Auto 6 is the copyright of Rockstar Games and/or Take-Two Interactive Software. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 