grand theft auto v – Trekking with Dennis

Grand Theft Auto VI: Three (Potential) Problems In Store

I wanted to expand a little on something I said yesterday, when I made some predictions for the year ahead. If you haven’t read it yet, don’t miss my predictions, by the way! I had a bit of fun talking about some likely (and some not-so-likely) things that we might see in 2026. You can find that piece by clicking or tapping here.

In the “not-so-likely” category, one of my predictions involved Grand Theft Auto VI, the upcoming open-world crime game from Take-Two and Rockstar. I said that there’s a possibility – however remote it may seem right now – that GTA 6 fails to meet its sales targets, which are surely pretty high given the amount of money that’s been dumped into its development, and will end the year being considered an expensive failure. I only dedicated a couple of paragraphs to the idea last time, but I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a longer article.

So let’s talk about that!

Still frame from the second GTA VI trailer showing Jason. — Is everything sunny for *Grand Theft Auto VI*?

To get the most obvious point out of the way, no video game – nor film, TV show, novel, etc. – is a *guaranteed* hit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sequel to one of the best, most universally-praised titles of all-time. It doesn’t matter if it’s part of a decades-long franchise with a huge fanbase. It doesn’t matter if it’s the most-hyped, most-highly-anticipated title of the year, the decade, or the century! There are *no* sure things in the entertainment industry, and anyone who’s convinced that “it’ll be a success because it’s Grand Theft Auto VI” is working from a faulty assumption.

Want proof? Look at the Star Wars franchise, beginning really with The Last Jedi, and especially with Solo: A Star Wars Story. Look at how viewership for Star Wars has gradually fallen away on streaming. Or take a look at Marvel, and how audience numbers, critic scores, and box office receipts have shrunk since Avengers: Endgame. Neither of these massive franchises has been able to successfully reach the heights they once did. And because of the way the industry (and capitalism in general) operates, it’s not good enough to make “a profit.” You have to make a bigger profit more quickly every time.

Posters for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels, and Thunderbolts/The New Avengers. — Three recent Marvel films, which all underperformed.

In the games industry, too, there are countless examples. The long-running Halo series has been floundering since, to be realistic, Halo: Reach’s release fifteen years ago, back in the Xbox 360 era. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was not only a superhero game set in the DC Comics universe, but it was also developed by the established Rocksteady Studios, tapped into the live-service trend, and had a ton of money poured into it by Warner Bros. Games. And it lost $200 million. Star Wars Outlaws failed to break even for Disney and Ubisoft. The once-lauded BioWare has endured a decade-plus of failure, with Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. And dare we mention Sony’s Concord?

Have I made my point?

It doesn’t matter that the series or franchise is beloved and has been a hit in the past. It doesn’t matter who the developers are, or if their earlier works have been popular and well-received. It doesn’t matter if you’re a literal games industry institution. Gaming shifts and changes over time, with players’ expectations evolving, too. Name recognition and hype can only take you so far, and *especially* for a title that makes most of its money from an online mode which relies on long-term play and recurring spending, they aren’t enough to get you over the line.

Shark Cards for sale in Grand Theft Auto V. — Shark Cards for sale in *Grand Theft Auto V*.

The video games industry is not a static, stagnant thing. It’s been almost *thirteen years* since the launch of Grand Theft Auto V, and the way the gaming landscape looks today is pretty different from how it was back then. There’s been a pandemic, which saw loads of people stuck at home with little to do, there’s been the massive growth of a handful of online live-service titles, and there have been some pretty serious price hikes, too. Gaming has grown, but it’s also become more expensive, struggled to retain some of its new audience since the end of lockdown, and many younger players today stick with a handful of games – or literally just *one* – for years at a time.

Grand Theft Auto V has been at the forefront of some of the biggest trends in the industry in recent years. But being an industry leader is not a guarantee of success. Just ask Atari, Sega, or any of the developers of the games I just mentioned. Rockstar and Take-Two have been riding high thanks to Grand Theft Auto V’s online mode. But in 2013, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that Grand Theft Auto V was a single-player title with an online mode tacked on. Because of the way the industry has shifted – and because of how successful that online mode became – Grand Theft Auto VI is a fundamentally different kind of title. It’s an online game first, with a single-player campaign being tacked on. A total 180° shift.

Still frame from the first GTA VI trailer showing Lucia holding some cash. — Rockstar and Take-Two are hoping to cash in on *GTA VI’*s online mode.

GTA 6 is, according to reliable reporting, going to be the most expensive video game… ever. With a budget, when accounting for its extensive marketing campaign, that could come close to, or even top, $2 billion… that’s a *lot* of Shark Cards that Rockstar will have to sell for the game to merely break even, let alone begin to turn a profit.

To be clear: that money has been invested with the expectation that there’ll be a huge profit to be made. But the higher the budget, and the longer the game takes to develop, the more sales and the more microtransactions are needed in order for the game to simply make its money back. This is a trap that has tripped up *many* titles over the years; plenty of games could have been profitable if they’d just… toned it down. Star Citizen – one of the few games to have burned through almost as much money as Grand Theft Auto VI – is a case in point: so much money has been spent on development that actually turning a profit when (or if) the game actually launches feels basically impossible at this point.

Headshots of the Take-Two Interactive board of directors circa Dec 2025/Jan 2026. — The Take-Two Interactive board of directors circa January 2026.

There are really three main problems that I can see which could potentially cause Grand Theft Auto VI to stumble, beyond what we’ve already discussed.

The first is that a game with a bigger budget needs to sell more units, and convince more players to pay for microtransactions. But… Grand Theft Auto VI already hits a problem here. There’s a smaller potential audience for the game than there is for its predecessor – or even than there was in 2013 when GTA 5 launched.

At time of writing, there are approximately 120 million PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles out in the wild. Most of those are PS5s, but if you add the combined sales totals together, that’s what you get. That’s compared with close to 190 million PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles that have been sold. And on top of that, recent data from the second half of 2025 shows a serious slowdown in the home console market.

Stock/promo photo of a PlayStation 5 console and DualSense control pad. — There are fewer PS5s out there than PS4s.

In 2013, when Grand Theft Auto V launched for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, there were around 155-160 million of those consoles in homes. And across the lifetime of GTA 5, it’s had access to the 190 million last-gen systems, as well as at least tens of millions of PCs, too. And that massive audience, across three home console generations and PC, is what’s led to it becoming the second-best-selling game of all-time.

With a smaller potential audience at launch than GTA 5 had in 2013, by an order of some forty-ish million, and without the simultaneous PC release that Take-Two and Rockstar decided to cheap out on, will Grand Theft Auto VI have a comparable launch to its predecessor? GTA 5 earned a billion dollars in just three days… will GTA 6 do the same? Or will it take longer to reach that number? If it does take longer, will Take-Two and Rockstar *already* begin to panic?

Still frame from the second GTA VI trailer showing a character driving past the police. — *Grand Theft Auto VI* will have a smaller built-in audience at launch than its predecessor.

This leads into my next point: home consoles are expensive right now, and in a difficult economy in which ordinary people are struggling, that’s being reflected in a serious decline in sales. It now seems beyond unlikely that the PlayStation 5 will *ever* reach, let alone eclipse, the total lifetime sales of the PS4, and even the Nintendo Switch 2, which only launched a few months ago, has just endured a very rocky holiday season everywhere except for Japan. In October and November 2025, home console sales were the lowest they’d been for thirty years. *Thirty years.*

Not since the days of the Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, and first PlayStation have home console sales been this low. Think of all the consoles to have been and gone since then: the N64, the Dreamcast, every single Xbox ever… that’s how rough things are in the home console market right now. Even the newly-launched Switch 2 hasn’t been able to drive sales to any great extent.

Front artwork on a Sega Saturn box. — Not since the days of the Sega Saturn have so few home consoles been sold.

There’s not even a question as to why, either. The tail end of the Xbox One/PS4 generation, as well as the middle of the Switch’s life, saw the Covid pandemic, lockdowns, and a lot of folks stuck at home with little to do… and furlough money or a stimulus cheque to spend. Console sales went up, naturally, as people needed to find ways to stay connected with friends, and things to do that didn’t require going outdoors!

But that’s not even the half of it. The real reason why consoles are struggling right now is simple: price hikes. Xbox consoles have gone up in price. PlayStation consoles have gone up in price. And the Switch 2 is significantly more expensive than its predecessor. Even if the economy was working properly for everyday folks, these price hikes would be hard to stomach. But when people are *already* struggling to make ends meet? Luxuries like home consoles, especially overpriced ones, are the first things to be cut from budgets and Christmas wishlists.

Stock image of a Nintendo Switch 2 console. — The Switch 2, in its launch year, hasn’t sold especially well outside of Japan.

This is directly connected to my next point.

I don’t know whether the reports are true, and whether Rockstar and Take-Two genuinely plan to launch Grand Theft Auto VI at a ridiculously inflated price. But $100 is out there, being widely discussed, and it’s not a hot take to say that that could be the target right now. But we’ve already seen the backlash to that kind of pricing.

Mario Kart World, the first game to launch for $80, would probably have been subject to less criticism were it not for the inflated price. And Xbox had to walk back plans to raise some of their prices to $80 after very low pre-order numbers and a massive wave of criticism. So GTA 6 retailing for $100 or even “just” $80 would unquestionably generate a similar backlash, in my view.

Still frame from the second GTA VI trailer showing two people hiding from a helicopter. — Maybe *Grand Theft Auto VI* should be free-to-play…

Combine an unprecedented and unpopular price for the game with the already sky-high price of home consoles – and the fact that a lot of folks would need to pick up a new machine if they want to play the game – and you’ve got the perfect storm. In this economy, can players really afford to pay $750 to pick up a new PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X and Grand Theft Auto VI? And if they can… is it worth it for just one new title? How many players, who’ve already made it this far into the current generation without picking up a new console, are going to be convinced to shell out that much money to play one new game? Because that’s what Rockstar and Take-Two will be asking: it’s not just the price of the game, but also the inflated console prices that players have to take into account.

Finally, Grand Theft Auto VI will potentially run into the same problem that has knocked down many live-service titles: will players feel the need to switch?

Suppose I’m a big GTA fan, and I’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto V for years. I have a group of buddies that I play with regularly, I have my in-game money, a base I’ve spent ages perfecting, and a character I’ve levelled up. I know the map, I know the heists, I know the vehicles and the weapons. I’m settled and happy in my GTA 5 server with my friends and my way of playing the game. Why do I need a new game? Why do *I* need to spend potentially hundreds of dollars or pounds on new hardware and a new title when I’m perfectly content with what I already have?

Promo image for Grand Theft Auto V Online. — The way people play games is changing; sticking with one title for years at a time is now commonplace.

This is “the Concord problem.”

Why did no one buy Concord in 2024? It was a well-made hero shooter. Sure, it was a bit generic… but so are a lot of those games, let’s be honest! But what did Concord do to convince fans of Overwatch or Apex Legends that they needed to switch? Fans of those titles, and others, are already settled. And many players nowadays only play one game – they find an online experience they enjoy, be it Roblox, Fortnite, Helldivers II, or the venerable Grand Theft Auto V, and they stick with it.

Even sequels, like Overwatch 2, have struggled. And in the more competitive scene, some recent titles – like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 – have struggled to convince fans of the series or last year’s entry that they need the upgrade. We’re in a new era of gaming, where players often feel a strong sense of loyalty to a single title, and stick with it. And games companies have recognised that, adding new maps, new challenges, new weapons, and new content to existing games instead of making new ones. Why has Grand Theft Auto VI taken thirteen-plus years to be ready for release? Because Rockstar and Take-Two did exactly that with GTA 5 and its online mode.

Promo image for the KPop Demon Hunters characters in Fortnite. — Many players of online games like *Fortnite* (and *Grand Theft Auto V*) only play that one game.

Will Grand Theft Auto V turn out to be VI’s biggest competitor? That’s one of my big unanswerable questions right now. Fans of GTA 5, many of whom have been playing for literally more than a decade, may not be as inclined to buy a new game as Rockstar and Take-Two are hoping. And unless Rockstar instantly drops support for Grand Theft Auto V the same day VI launches… there’ll still be a reason to stick with the game they know and love.

Suppose Epic Games announced “Fortnite II” tomorrow. Would Fortnite’s players all switch over to the new game? Would Roblox players migrate en masse to a sequel, if one were ever created? Grand Theft Auto V’s player base – especially in the online mode – behaves more like players of other massively-multiplayer live-service games. Folks like myself, who grew up on single-player titles, happily hop from one game to another. But that’s not the way the industry at large is trending in the 2020s. Many gamers stick with the same game for years, and convincing players of a beloved, well-known, and perfectly functional game that they need to buy a new, expensive title – and perhaps new hardware, too – is going to be more of a task than a lot of people appreciate.

Still frame from the first GTA VI trailer showing cars on a busy street. — However good the game ultimately is, will it be enough to convince players of *GTA 5* that they need the upgrade?

You see this phenomenon in basically every genre, and establishing a new title – even in a long-running series – is more difficult in 2026 than it’s ever been before. When Civilization VII launched last year, many players opted to stick with Civ VI instead of jump ship to the new game – and some of those who tried it out drifted back. This happens in strategy games, in shooters, in party and puzzle games… and a title like Grand Theft Auto V, which has been at the top of the charts for over a decade? It could happen here, too.

So those are, as I see it, GTA 6′s three biggest potential issues.

To recap, they are: the smaller install base of current-gen systems, with fewer consoles (and no PC release) meaning the potential audience for Grand Theft Auto VI is smaller even than GTA 5 had in 2013. Then there’s the price of the game itself, combined with the price of buying a brand-new console in 2026 after all of the price hikes, with the general state of the economy being reflected in declining home console sales. And finally, there’s the difficult launch many live-service titles have when the live-service market is already saturated. Convincing GTA 5 players that they need to invest hundreds of dollars in a new system and a new title, when the one they have is still perfectly fun… that’s not an easy task, and it’s one that has tripped up many comparable games in recent years.

Still frame from the second Grand Theft Auto VI trailer showing the main characters sitting on a dock. — Problems may lie ahead for *Grand Theft Auto VI*…

To be clear, I don’t necessarily believe that Grand Theft Auto VI will be “a flop.” I think there’s a lot of hype, a lot of excitement, and even just a lot of interest and curiosity surrounding the game. But there are valid questions about the game’s price in the current economy, and whether players who are convinced to check it out will stick with it if their friends remain on last-gen hardware playing GTA 5.

In 2019, Rockstar and Take-Two hoped that Red Dead Redemption II’s online mode would rival that of Grand Theft Auto V, and they poured a lot of money into it… at first. But when RDR2 didn’t take off in the same way as GTA 5, they pretty quickly abandoned it. Red Dead Redemption II is still playable online, but it hasn’t received major new updates or content since 2021. Could Grand Theft Auto VI end up in the same boat if players don’t jump into the online mode with the enthusiasm Rockstar and Take-Two are hoping for? Even if the game breaks even and begins to turn a profit… how long do the content updates and new missions keep coming for if most players are sticking with GTA 5?

Grand Theft Auto VI will (supposedly) launch in November.

As we look ahead to 2026, which is supposedly the year Grand Theft Auto VI will launch, there may be causes for concern in the Take-Two boardroom. I don’t think it’s a five-alarm fire or anything, but there are a lot of eggs in this particular basket, and a lot of money has been invested in a title which, despite its name, hype, and status, cannot be seen as a sure thing. Though I still consider this an outside possibility, less “likely” than “plausible,” we shouldn’t write off the idea that Grand Theft Auto VI won’t meet its sales targets this year, and might even end up being considered a disappointment.

So I hope this has been interesting, at least! Grand Theft Auto VI was one of the first subjects I ever wrote about here on the website, all the way back in December 2019, and if you’d told me then that we’d be into 2026 with the game still not out… I don’t think I’d have believed it! But here we are, and at time of writing, a November 2026 launch is still on the cards for those of you lucky enough to have bought a PS5 or Xbox Series console before prices got silly. As for me… well, I play on PC. So if Rockstar and Take-Two can ever be bothered to release a port, that’s when I’d consider picking up Grand Theft Auto VI. But not for $100, though!

If and when we get more news on GTA 6, its price, a new trailer… or anything like that, I hope you’ll check in. I daresay I’ll have more to say on this game at some point soon.

Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled to be released in November 2026 for Xbox Series S/X and PlayStation 5. A PC release has not been confirmed. The Grand Theft Auto series – including GTA 6 and other titles discussed above – is the copyright of Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Five highly-rated games that I couldn’t get into

Thu 19.01.23Dennis

I recently saw a video on TikTok of all places where a player was talking about their list of games that, for one reason or another, they had tried but didn’t like or couldn’t get the hang of. I’ve lost the video now and can’t find it to credit the person, unfortunately – so if you somehow see this please don’t think I’m stealing your idea! But I liked the concept, so today I wanted to talk for a few minutes about five highly-rated games that I just couldn’t get into.

A note before we start: these games are, according to most reviews, thoroughly enjoyable. The fact that I’m personally not interested in them, or couldn’t get to grips with them, is not meant as an attack. Chances are you’ll find some or all of these games to be great – and that’s okay! All of this is just the subjective opinion of one person. While I will try to explain what it was that put me off or what I didn’t like about each of these titles, I recognise that all of them are held in high regard. The fact that I didn’t enjoy them or couldn’t get stuck into them is a personal thing and nothing more!

The first games console I owned in the early 1990s was a Super Nintendo, and even back then I remember struggling with some particularly challenging titles. Gaming has not always been accessible to everyone – and I’m not the most skilled player in the world by any stretch. There were also games on the SNES that I tried out but didn’t like or wasn’t interested in, as there were on every subsequent console I owned, too! At least in those days it was easier to re-sell or trade in a game that I didn’t like!

As gaming has evolved, it’s become easier than ever to get started with playing games – and there are more titles more easily accessible on more platforms than ever before. But despite the ubiquity of gaming today, and the myriad titles in every imaginable genre, not every game is going to be right for every player!

So without further ado, let’s jump into my list.

Number 1:
Star Trek Online
2010

I’m a huge Star Trek fan and have been for more than thirty years. At a time when the Star Trek franchise had stepped out of its prime timeline to make the reboot film trilogy, Star Trek Online came along and promised to return to that setting and take a look at events after The Next Generation era, around the turn of the 25th Century.

This is exactly the time period that I was (and still am) most interested to see explored, so Star Trek Online should have been perfect for me! The game has also brought on board many Star Trek actors, both series regulars and guest-stars, to voice versions of their beloved characters. Storylines would take players to different eras of Star Trek’s history thanks to missions that travelled through time, and almost every Star Trek race was present – with several major factions being fully playable, too.

I tried Star Trek Online shortly after it launched, and I even paid for some of its in-game currency and cosmetic items like uniforms. But despite sinking somewhere in the region of 35 hours into the game, I just couldn’t find a way to enjoy it, and I quickly felt that I was playing it more out of obligation and hope rather than for any real sense of fun.

I just can’t get on with online multiplayer games for the most part. In titles like Fall Guys I can have fun, and I’ve played some racing games online too, but in a game with a story where I want to get immersed in a fictional world and enjoy interacting with characters, seeing hundreds of other players cutting about just rips me right out of it. There can’t be 16,000 “one and only heroes” who are all the best hope for saving the galaxy… that just doesn’t make sense. So for me, Star Trek Online’s genuinely interesting stories and missions clashed in a fundamental, irreconcilable way with its gameplay.

Number 2:
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
2018

Box art for *Kingdom Come: Deliverance*.

I followed the development of Kingdom Come: Deliverance for a while, and in 2018 it was definitely one of the titles I was most interested to try out. I’m a history buff (it was the subject I read at university) and the idea of stepping into a realistic recreation of the high medieval period was genuinely exciting. Kingdom Come: Deliverance seemed to be offering a unique experience; an action/role-playing game but without the fantasy elements that are often present in the genre.

I like to think that I gave Kingdom Come: Deliverance a fair shake when I was able to eventually get the game for myself. But to my disappointment, I found it punishingly difficult to the point that it was basically unplayable. One day we’ll need to have a longer conversation about difficulty in games, because this is a big topic, but for now suffice to say that Kingdom Come: Deliverance didn’t respect me or my time.

A fistfight is part of why I called it quits…

By denying players the option to freely save their game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance forced me to replay long sections with no good reason. And with no way to turn down the difficulty, I found myself dying over and over even in what was supposed to be the introductory area. Combine those two things together and I was already having an incredibly frustrating time. I put Kingdom Come: Deliverance down and simply never went back to it.

Difficulty settings are accessibility features, opening up games to disabled players and players with different abilities. Moreover, they’re commonplace and not that hard to implement – there’s no technical reason why a modern game can’t offer a way to change the difficulty for players who want or need an easier experience. I don’t have the time or energy to spend hours and hours practising one aspect of one game, and I don’t really have the ability or skillset, either. Kingdom Come: Deliverance was basically denied to me as a result – and that’s unfortunate, because I genuinely wanted to play it.

Number 3:
Marvel’s Spider-Man
2018

Although I’m not the world’s biggest fan of comic books and their cinematic adaptations, Marvel has been unavoidable over the past few years. I wouldn’t have normally sought out a superhero title, but Spider-Man is widely considered a masterpiece; one of the best open-world adventures certainly of the last generation. So I thought I’d give it a shot.

Perhaps it’s because I have no real investment in the world of Marvel or its characters, but I found that I just couldn’t get into Spider-Man’s story. Several hours into my playthrough I’d done a handful of story missions and spent a bit of time enjoying the scenery – the game’s recreation of New York City really is a sight to see, and one of the most interesting and vertical cityscapes ever brought into the gaming realm. But despite a great setting, the game’s version of New York seemed to be filled with bog-standard open-world busywork and little else; most encounters consisted of beating up a handful of nondescript thugs and bad guys.

Promo screenshot of *Marvel’s Spider-Man*.

At first I thought I was going to have a hard time with the web-swinging mechanic that’s a big part of how Spider-Man traverses the open world, but after a little while – and more than a few false starts and mistakes – I think I more or less got the hang of it. Swinging is pretty forgiving, and at least in the denser parts of the city, there’s no shortage of things to grab hold of. It’s certainly an unusual way to navigate a game world!

The game’s story included a number of Marvel villains and characters whose names were familiar to me, but I feel that without that investment in either the films or comic books, I just wasn’t particularly interested to see where the story and its characters went. I didn’t actively choose to stop playing Spider-Man – the game is actually still installed on my PC at time of writing – but I put it down one day and just… didn’t pick it back up. I found other things to watch and play instead, and I feel no pressing need to return to Spider-Man and see its story continue.

Number 4:
Elden Ring
2022

Many publications picked Elden Ring as their game of the year, and it’s considered by a lot of folks to be one of the best open-world games and one of the best “Souls-like” games of all-time. But as I said above when discussing Kingdom Come: Deliverance, it’s that punishing difficulty that I found to be offputting.

FromSoftware – developers of both Elden Ring and the Dark Souls series – use this kind of excessive, punishing difficulty as a selling point in their games and have for years, but I’m not on board with it at all. Granted I’m not the world’s best gamer, and that’s probably part of it, but I also see this style of gameplay being used to cover up game mechanics and design elements that aren’t great, and especially to pad out the runtime of a game that would ordinarily be a lot shorter. Think about it: the combination of very difficult combat encounters and a checkpoint system that can mean having to replay entire chunks of the game over and over clearly adds to the runtime of titles like Elden Ring.

A familiar sight to anyone who’s played a “Souls-like” game!

This is much more of a subjective thing, but I felt that, despite having decent graphics, Elden Ring actually looked pretty bland. A colour palette that was swamped by brown, khaki, green, and grey tones just didn’t impress me, and the game had a pretty drab and even depressing look to it as a result. Maybe there was a reason for that, but it didn’t exactly leave a good impression.

At the end of the day, I’d have given Elden Ring a shot if the game offered difficulty and accessibility options. There’s absolutely no technical reason why every game in 2023 shouldn’t be able to do this – and while it’s a choice the developers made, and will presumably continue to make in future titles, it’s one that is intentionally cutting off millions of potential players. I knew from the second it was announced that Elden Ring wouldn’t be for me because I knew that the company developing it would ensure it would be a game I would find inaccessible. And that’s kind of sad, especially if it really is as good and as immersive as people have said.

Number 5:
Grand Theft Auto V (Online)
2013

I played through Grand Theft Auto V’s single-player campaign and I had a decent enough time with it. The open world is great – or at least it was by the standards of games a decade ago; it’s definitely showing its age by now! But the game’s online mode was, for the same kinds of reasons that we’ve already discussed, just something I couldn’t get into.

Grand Theft Auto V also feels remarkably pay-to-win for a game that costs money up-front, and probably deserves more blame than it gets for normalising in-game microtransactions and pay-to-win elements in online multiplayer games that we’ve seen explode in the decade since it was released. Other titles such as Fortnite and Overwatch definitely contributed to this as well, and the less said about the FIFA series or Battlefront II the better… but Grand Theft Auto V was doing the pay-to-win thing before any of them.

Racing is one of a number of activities players can partake in online.

By 2023 I had expected to see the Grand Theft Auto series move on, releasing a new game. And no, the awful “remaster” of the Grand Theft Auto III trilogy doesn’t count! Obviously this wasn’t an issue in 2013 or 2014, but as Grand Theft Auto V was ported to more and more platforms, including the latest generation of home consoles, there’s a growing sense that Rockstar is milking it dry, and is unwilling to let it go. Development time and resources than could – and I would argue should – have been allocated to the next game in the series have been taken up by creating new missions and microtransactions for Grand Theft Auto V. That’s great for folks who are still playing – but some of us are ready for a new game!

At the end of the day, when Grand Theft Auto V became the highest-grossing entertainment product of all-time, I guess it’s understandable that Rockstar would struggle to let it go. But on the other hand, with all the money it’s made them, there’s more than enough to spend on developing a new game! We know that Grand Theft Auto VI is being worked on, at least, but it’s taking an awfully long time.

So that’s it!

Those are five highly-rated games that, for the reasons discussed above, I just couldn’t get into. If one or more of your favourites made the list, well… just keep in mind it’s only the opinion of one person! We’re all allowed our own preferences, and while I tried to explain what it was that made these titles unappealing or offputting to me, it’s all subjective. I recognise that these games are all bestsellers and held in high esteem by many players… they just weren’t right for me.

We’re lucky that gaming has grown to such a point where there are so many different choices available to players. These games aren’t my cup of tea… but there are many that I’ve enjoyed over the years – and many more coming up that I hope to enjoy in the months and years ahead! Whether you want to play a quiet, casual game for a spot of relaxation or punish yourself with an impossibly difficult title, there really is something for everyone. And I think that’s fantastic!

So I hope this was a bit of fun – and please try not to take it too seriously, especially if I made criticisms of one of your favourite titles!

All titles discussed above are the copyright of their respective studio, developer, and/or publisher. Some screenshots and promotional artwork courtesy of IGDB. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Grand Theft Auto 6: a wishlist

Tue 08.02.22Tue 08.02.22Dennis

If you haven’t heard that Rockstar just confirmed the worst-kept secret in gaming – that Grand Theft Auto 6 is in production – then you must be living under a rock! The news has been everywhere in recent days, and even made it into mainstream (i.e. non-gaming) news outlets here in the UK. It makes sense: Grand Theft Auto V is one of the best-selling entertainment products of all time, eclipsing films, television shows, and even entire franchises. What comes next is going to be of interest to a great many people.

It’s been eight months since I last looked ahead to Grand Theft Auto 6, and with the game’s official announcement doing the rounds I thought it could be fun to put together a short wishlist of things I’d personally like to see the next entry include. It goes without saying that all of this is subjective – I don’t have any “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that the next Grand Theft Auto game needs to have any or all of these features. It’s just a bit of fun from a sometime fan of the series – and given that we know next to nothing about what the game will actually look like, why not throw some ideas of my own out there?

So without any further ado, let’s jump into my Grand Theft Auto 6 wishlist!

Number 1:
A proper single-player campaign.

A single-player mode is an essential part of the Grand Theft Auto experience.

At this stage there’s been no indication that Grand Theft Auto 6 will go all-in on its inevitable online mode… but I’m still wary. Grand Theft Auto V didn’t become the second-best-selling video game ever because of its single-player campaign (Minecraft is number one, in case you were wondering). It was the online mode that kept fans coming back – and crucially from Rockstar’s point of view, kept them spending money.

There has to be a temptation to skip the single-player campaign altogether, or else direct the vast majority of development time and resources into Grand Theft Auto 6′s online mode. I hope that some senior folks at Rockstar are pushing back on that!

*Grand Theft Auto V’*s online mode has been crucial to the game’s success.

That said, it’s worth pointing out that less than one-third of players have actually completed the Grand Theft Auto V single-player campaign. Rockstar’s other big release, Red Dead Redemption II, has comparable figures for completion too, so it seems that a significant number of players either don’t make it to the end of the campaign or, more likely, only turn up for the multiplayer online mode.

Despite that, Grand Theft Auto 6 would lose something significant without a decent, long single-player campaign – and I don’t just say that because it’s the part of the game that I’m most interested in! There’s still a lot of people interested in single-player titles, and Rockstar has demonstrated time and again its ability to write truly excellent stories. Moreover, a lot of people would want to play the game in single-player mode to learn the ropes before jumping into multiplayer, or just for fun in between multiplayer sessions. There are plenty of reasons to make sure that Grand Theft Auto 6 retains a solid single-player mode.

Number 2:
A customisable protagonist.

Despite its faults, *Cyberpunk 2077* has a great character creator.

There’s been a lot of speculation about whether Grand Theft Auto 6 will include – shock horror – a girl as one of its protagonists. Cue the usual outrage from sexist morons and Twitter trolls. But I’d like to see the game go further than that, and use the character creators from games like Cyberpunk 2077 and the Saints Row series as inspiration, allowing players to craft their own, fully customisable protagonist.

A customisable character could be male, female, non-binary, trans, or anything else players want them to be. With a relatively small amount of effort, it should be possible to craft a story that a custom character can slot into, and I’ve long felt that a custom character can make a game feel more immersive. Rockstar has allowed a limited version of this in Grand Theft Auto Online – but I’m thinking bigger!

I’m thinking of a massively expanded version of the current *Grand Theft Auto Online* character creator!

With Rockstar’s resources, the company could build the best character creator that any video game has ever seen. Grand Theft Auto 6 could set a high bar and become the new gold standard that other games would be compared to. Maybe I’m getting over-excited, but I think there’s a lot of potential for a truly outstanding character creator considering the amount of money that Rockstar has at its disposal.

The Grand Theft Auto series is known for its sense of humour and sarcastic style, and that could absolutely carry over to the character creator too! Making incredibly silly-looking characters, or replicating the appearances of famous figures could all become part of the fun. And it would be an easy way for Rockstar to include trans and non-binary people – allowing us to feel represented in the new game.

Number 3:
Multiple protagonists.

The trio of playable characters in *Grand Theft Auto V*.

If a custom character creator is off the table for whatever reason, then I hope that Grand Theft Auto 6 won’t abandon the multiple protagonist approach that worked so well in its predecessor. Being able to unlock different characters, then switch between them on the fly, added a fun element to gameplay, and with each character being different and coming from a different place, there was scope to tell three very different stories that ultimately came together.

My preference would be for a custom character, I think. If handled properly, and if the character creator was well-built with plenty of choices and options, that would be the best way for Grand Theft Auto 6 to truly represent as many different folks as possible. But a group of three or four main characters, including at least one female protagonist, would be a good option too.

How about we play as a female character for once?

That being said, I can already predict that there will be a backlash from so-called “fans” in the gamer community if Rockstar shows off a female protagonist or a group of protagonists that include people from different backgrounds. “Grand Theft Auto 6 is going woke” will be the familiar, disappointing cry from too many people.

A custom character would get around that, in large part, and that’s another good point in its favour. But there’s still something appealing about having multiple playable characters, as I feel that was a feature that worked well but went underappreciated in Grand Theft Auto V.

Number 4:
Way more clothes and other customisation options.

*Grand Theft Auto 6* can do better than this!

Continuing a trend from the entries above, I’d love to see Grand Theft Auto 6 offer players a lot more outfits, weapon mods, vehicle designs, and the like. Red Dead Redemption II offered a pretty wide range of outfits and some gun modification options, but I’d like to see this expanded in a big way for Grand Theft Auto 6. Again, Rockstar can look to games like Cyberpunk 2077 for inspiration – despite the myriad problems with that title, there’s no denying it has a lot of customisation options!

Part of the fun of an expansive open-world title like Grand Theft Auto 6 is getting lost in the world and feeling like you’re participating, living out an alternate life. How your character appears is a big part of that, and being able to change up the protagonist’s style – going from street to preppy to old-fashioned and beyond – is a big part of that. Making my character look the way I want them to look is all part of the immersion.

Customising a rifle in *Red Dead Redemption II*.

This can extend to vehicles and weapons, too. Red Dead Redemption II allowed for a degree of cosmetic weapon customisation, and that was great, but that title was set in the 19th Century and thus the cosmetic options were somewhat limited! But for a game with a more modern setting, it should be possible to have cars and guns in every shade of the rainbow for starters, and with plenty of designs, logos, and more to add to them and fully customise them. Forza Horizon 5 offers a pretty extensive vehicle customiser, and it never ceases to amaze me to see the creative designs that folks in that game have come up with!

So let’s think about adding plenty of different clothes in a variety of styles and from a variety of fashion trends! Depending on when and where the game is set there could be limitations on this, and that would be understandable, but I’d still like to see an extensive range of clothes, vehicle designs, weapon skins, and the like so I can really get stuck in and make my character stand out!

Number 5:
A brand-new setting.

I’m kicking myself for not taking a screenshot because now I can’t find it, but I saw a poll on social media within the last couple of days asking participants where they’d like Grand Theft Auto 6 to be set. Vice City – the franchise’s Miami analogue – put in a creditable showing, but by far the most-requested setting was “somewhere new.”

Grand Theft Auto V was successful by reimagining Los Santos – a city that had first appeared in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2005 – but I’d like to see the next entry in the series pick a brand-new setting to explore instead of returning to somewhere that fans of the series have already been. The franchise should also avoid, in my opinion, settings that would be too similar to its recent Los Angeles stand-in, so I’d recommend avoiding coastal, tropical cities.

I wouldn’t take Grand Theft Auto back to Vice City this time if it was up to me!

I also believe that the Grand Theft Auto series works best in an American setting. The series is geared up for America, and trying to transpose it and set a new game in Asia or Europe would, in my view anyway, take away something significant that defines what Grand Theft Auto is. I know there was that London spin-off in the days when Grand Theft Auto still used a top-down perspective, but every other title has been set in the United States.

There are several really interesting choices for cities that a new game could be based on. A Washington DC analogue could look at things like power and corruption, or the game could hop over to Chicago for a story about the mob. A city based on Detroit could look at the decline of America as a manufacturing powerhouse and what effects that has had. Or Grand Theft Auto 6 could show us an updated, modern-day look at Red Dead Redemption II’s Saint Denis – a stand-in for New Orleans! Those are just a few interesting ideas, and it could be really neat to see any show up in a future game.

Number 6:
A different time period.

Some of the best-loved Grand Theft Auto games didn’t use a modern-day setting. Vice City was set in the 1980s and San Andreas was set in the 1990s, and both games are well-remembered – despite being soiled by a recent sub-par remaster. In addition, Red Dead Redemption II took Rockstar’s signature open-world concept all the way back to the 19th Century and proved it can still work! So there’s a lot of potential, in my view, for the next Grand Theft Auto game to step out of the modern day.

There’s a lot of eighties nostalgia floating around at the moment, with films like Ready Player One and TV shows like Stranger Things cashing in on that, so that’s one possibility. It would also be interesting to step back into the 1990s and re-live the turn of the millennium all over again! There’s a lot of potential in taking advantage of a distinct time period or moment in time, and Rockstar has already demonstrated an ability to do so with past titles.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will have a difficult task to distinguish itself from its phenomenally-popular predecessor, and one way to immediately change the look and feel of the game and make it distinct would be to set it in a completely different decade. Combined with a setting that would take players away from the palm trees and beaches of California (sorry, San Andreas) I think an earlier time period could be an exceptionally interesting way to draw a line under Grand Theft Auto V and demonstrate that the new game has something very different to offer.

Somehow, Grand Theft Auto 6 has to do things that its immediate predecessor couldn’t offer. That realistically means that the new game needs either a brand-new setting or a time period that the series hasn’t visited in a while. Ideally, Grand Theft Auto 6 will offer both.

Number 7:
Cameos are fine, but let’s have new characters and a new story.

Claude from *Grand Theft Auto 3* (right) had a cameo in *San Andreas*.

There’s going to be a huge temptation for Grand Theft Auto 6 to be an overblown sequel, stuffed full of callbacks, references, and nostalgia plays for Grand Theft Auto V – and other entries in the series. Depending on when and where the game is set, this could mean the return of familiar characters.

Cameos and the occasional reference are okay – and good fan-service in some respects – but I hope that the new game’s story will be able to stand on its own two feet. Grand Theft Auto isn’t a series that needs this kind of backwards-looking nostalgia, and every game thus far has been a distinct, standalone title. Because of the success of Grand Theft Auto V, though, there may well be some senior figures at Rockstar who aren’t prepared to fully let go.

Number 8:
Visual and gameplay improvements.

There have been some visually amazing games in recent years.
(Pictured: *Kena: Bridge of Spirits*)

Grand Theft Auto V is now almost nine years old, and was originally released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Updates, patches, and new versions have certainly kept things fresh, but the game is now showing its age. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were decent consoles, capable of producing some excellent games, but with the technological improvement of two full console generations, there’s scope for Grand Theft Auto 6 to be bigger, prettier, and a better all-round experience.

Realistically this means that Grand Theft Auto 6 has to be an Xbox Series S/X and PlayStation 5 exclusive – trying to make a game that could also work on last generation’s consoles might be tempting, especially given the perennial problems of shortages and stock availability that have plagued the new consoles since launch. But going down this road will be a massive mistake – as Cyberpunk 2077 developers CD Projekt Red found to their cost.

*Cyberpunk 2077* looks good (when it works).

Cyberpunk 2077 was crippled at launch by a catastrophic litany of bugs and glitches on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One specifically, and a big part of the reason why that happened is because the game is right at the technological limit of what those machines are capable of. If Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be the game that fans are expecting, it needs a world at least as big and dense as Cyberpunk 2077′s. That means it needs to be built from the ground up with new hardware in mind.

Part of the appeal of Grand Theft Auto games is how silly they can be – so I don’t necessarily think that Rockstar needs to implement a realistic physics system or anything like that. But there are some areas where the standard open-world gameplay could be improved, and in addition to next-gen graphics it would be great if the game could feel like something new as well.

Number 9:
Proper difficulty and saving options.

Examples of difficulty settings present in *Mass Effect: Legendary Edition*.

Most Rockstar games don’t offer proper difficulty options. This was a complaint I had with Red Dead Redemption II as well as Grand Theft Auto V – and as I’ve said on several occasions, in 2022 there’s no excuse for not providing players with the option to change the game’s difficulty. This is such an incredibly basic feature that has been part of so many games going back decades that it amazes me that Rockstar didn’t bother with it.

Red Dead Redemption II had a feature where, after failing a specific part of a mission 3 times, it would be possible to skip ahead to the next checkpoint – and this is the only reason I was able to make it to the end of the story! But Grand Theft Auto 6 needs to do better. Difficulty settings are an accessibility feature, allowing players with disabilities and players of different skill levels access to a game. Rockstar needs to realise this and act accordingly.

Games that are too difficult aren’t fun for many players.

Also, if I save a game in a specific location, I feel like my character should still be there when I load up my save file later on. I can’t count the number of times in Red Dead Redemption II where I loaded up my save and then had to figure out where I was, where my horse was, and where my next objective was, all because the game seems to pick arbitrary locations for the player character to be when loading up a save file.

Grand Theft Auto V had a “quicksave” option which got around this – but past games in the series have relied on players returning to a safe-house or other specific location in order to save progress and load up save files. This wastes time and is an inconvenience – one that modern game design allows practically all titles to get around. So a decent save/load option, please!

Number 10:
A simultaneous PC release.

Grand Theft Auto V was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2013, but didn’t come to PC for almost eighteen months. Red Dead Redemption II likewise didn’t arrive on PC for more than a year after its debut on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. But with PC gaming having grown ever more in just the last few years, it would be a mistake to leave PC players behind.

With the game having taken so long to develop already, what’s an extra few months if it means a PC version can be released alongside consoles? It would make so much sense to bring the game to all three platforms simultaneously, making for a bigger and bolder launch than either Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption II enjoyed. And yes, I admit that this one is pure bias – my primary gaming platform these days is a PC!

So that’s it.

Remember when *Grand Theft Auto* looked like this?

That’s as close as I can get to describing my “perfect” Grand Theft Auto 6! It took me well over two years from Red Dead Redemption II’s PC launch to finally get around to playing it, so don’t expect an instant review here on the website the second the new game is out! But I daresay I will pick up a copy – provided it has a single-player mode, at least – and share my thoughts and impressions.

Rockstar has previously announced games fairly close to their expected release window, so I wouldn’t be stunned to learn Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently gunning for a release before Christmas – but take that with a grain of salt. There’s been online chatter and rumours suggesting late 2023 or early 2024 as possible release windows, so I guess we’ll have to watch and wait for more information.

I’m curious to see how Rockstar will follow up one of the biggest games of all time. Grand Theft Auto V has been a juggernaut, clocking up sales for almost nine years and hardly ever dropping out of the top-ten or top-twenty bestsellers and most-played games lists. Rockstar will be hoping that Grand Theft Auto 6 can recapture the magic this time around, and will bring its significant financial resources to bear to ensure it happens. As for me, I’ll be happy if the game is fun – and if it meets some or all of the entries on my wishlist, I daresay it will be!

Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently in development and is the copyright of Rockstar Games and/or Take-Two Interactive. Some screenshots and promotional art courtesy of IGDB. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.