take-two – Trekking with Dennis

Grand Theft Auto VI: My Thoughts on the “Extended Look”

Spoiler Warning: Beware of minor spoilers (and/or potential spoilers) for Grand Theft Auto VI.

It’s been a little while since we last talked about Grand Theft Auto VI – arguably the most-anticipated video game of 2026, at least for those of you lucky enough to own an Xbox Series or PS5 console. I recently watched Rockstar’s “Extended Look” at the game, and there’ve also been a couple of interesting tidbits of GTA 6 news that have trickled out, so I wanted to get into all of that today.

As always, I have a couple of important caveats before we get started! While I *am* looking forward to trying out Grand Theft Auto VI, I’m not gonna be picking it up next month. I don’t own a current-gen console, and I have no intention of spending an obscene amount of money on new hardware just for the sake of a single title. If and when Rockstar can be bothered to do what *every single other developer in the industry* does and release a PC port, I’ll be sure to check out GTA 6 at that point.

Promo image for Grand Theft Auto VI in the style of a postcard — *GTA 6* launches next month.

Everything we’re going to get into today is also the *subjective, not objective* opinion of just one player. I’ve been a fan of the series since I first played the original Grand Theft Auto and its London spin-off at the tail end of the ’90s, and I know what I like and want to see from these games. But I’m also keenly aware that, as someone who doesn’t play GTA Online, I’m not necessarily the true target audience here! Although gamers can be argumentative sometimes, I like to believe there’s room in the gaming community for disagreements and differences of opinion – even on the hottest games of the year – that don’t descend into name-calling and toxicity. I share my thoughts with you in that spirit.

Finally, earlier this year, I laid out three reasons why Grand Theft Auto VI could – possibly, conceivably – not be considered as big a success as its immediate predecessor. I want to clarify that, while I still believe it’s a slim possibility rather than something likely to happen, I am *not* rooting for the game to fail. I want to play a fun, engaging, and exciting open-world crime adventure as much as the next person, and while I will speak critically about GTA 6 where I feel it’s necessary, that doesn’t come from a place of “hate.” Analysis and opinions are just that – and any criticism is intended to be constructive for GTA 6, Rockstar, and the wider games industry.

With all of that out of the way… let’s talk Grand Theft Auto VI!

Ready for an “Extended Look?”

First of all, before we get into the “Extended Look,” a couple of other points have come up over the last few weeks. Firstly, and perhaps most significantly for the game’s potential sales prospects, we have the online mode – or rather, the complete *lack* of an online mode.

In short, while an online mode is planned for Grand Theft Auto VI, it won’t be available when the game launches, meaning GTA 6 will be a wholly single-player experience at first. I’m a single-player gamer; I’ve never really got on with online multiplayer games of any kind, so that’s just fine with me! But it does make me wonder how it’ll impact GTA 6′s potential sales. Let me explain.

Why is Grand Theft Auto V one of the biggest games on the planet? Why has it made so much money for Take-Two and Rockstar? Why is it *still* routinely in the top-twenty most-sold games some thirteen years after its launch? I’ll give you a hint: it ain’t because of its single-player mode!

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing a car on the highway — *Grand Theft Auto VI* will launch without its online mode.

Grand Theft Auto V is where it is because it’s an online game. Many folks *only* engage with the online mode, or if they did play the single-player campaign once upon a time… they haven’t for years. To release the sequel without that online component feels like a risk… but it also makes me wonder what on earth Rockstar and Take-Two have been spending all this time and money on. For the amount of time Grand Theft Auto VI has been in the works… is it not reasonable to think it’d launch with both of its main modes – single-player and online – ready to go?

I’m not at all connected with the wider GTA fan community or any folks who regularly play online, but I have to imagine that if I were a huge fan of GTA Online, I’d be pretty disappointed to learn that the sequel – which took thirteen years to be ready to go – won’t be launching with my favourite mode (or the *only* mode I care about). Some folks may well decide not to even pick up the game at launch, instead choosing to wait until the online mode is ready. While there may be some advantages to playing the campaign first – like getting acquainted with the new map, new weapons, etc. – that may not be enough to convince folks to part with their money. And it strikes me as an odd decision.

Promo of GTA 5 Online — How will the lack of an online mode impact sales?

It was argued for a while that one of the main reasons why Grand Theft Auto VI couldn’t get a simultaneous PC release was because of the potential for cheating in the online mode. Rockstar, some fans alleged, wanted to ensure the console launch went smoothly and that they had more time to patch out or catch any bugs, exploits, or issues that could give PC players an advantage in multiplayer. But that argument – weak though it was – is now completely shot, so any conceivable excuse there may have been not to give the game a PC release has also evaporated.

I don’t want to linger on this for too long, ’cause I admit it sounds a bit like sour grapes coming from a PC player, but I really don’t get why Rockstar has developed such an antagonistic attitude towards PC gaming. Grand Theft Auto began as a PC series, with ports to consoles coming *after* the first game’s PC-exclusive release. And when basically every other big studio in the AAA space can manage to launch their games on PC at the same time as home consoles… I really don’t get it. It’s not a money issue, it’s not a tech issue, and it’s certainly not a multiplayer cheating issue. Maybe Rockstar hopes some fans will “double-dip;” buying the game on console first, then re-purchasing it on PC a year or two later. And… yeah, maybe some people will. But most won’t, so why not take full advantage of a big, multiplatform launch?

It didn’t make sense to me when they did it with past games, and it doesn’t now, either.

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing a fan boat — Piloting a fan boat through the game’s version of the Florida Everglades.

With no online mode at all, no simultaneous PC release, and a smaller install base of current-gen consoles today compared with the Xbox 360/PS3 generation in 2013… I really do wonder whether this game’s launch is gonna be as big and as financially lucrative as Rockstar and Take-Two are predicting. And that’s before we get into the raised price of the game, its $100 “special edition,” which merely adds back in cut content, and the sky-high prices of current-gen hardware.

But if you’re interested in a deeper dive into the game’s potential launch issues, click or tap here for a longer piece about that.

When Rockstar announced that Grand Theft Auto VI was going to get a collector’s edition for a whopping $400, I barely even rolled my eyes! That’s way too much money for a couple of keychains, shot glasses, and stickers, of course, but it’s also pretty common in the AAA games industry to have such things. But then I found out that this expensive collector’s edition… *doesn’t even come with a copy of the fucking game*!

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing Jason opening a car door — Jason getting into his car.

So for $400, here’s what you get: a plastic alligator figure, a baseball cap with the game’s logo, a pair of plastic sunglasses, a bum-bag with the game’s logo, a mirror with a sticker on it, a keychain, a spoon, a shot glass, a bunch of stickers, a poster/map, and a metal tin.

And, as mentioned, no Grand Theft Auto VI to play.

Does that sound like $400 worth of value to you? Because to me, you know what it sounds like? One of those crappy “Loot Crate” things that people used to pay, like, $25 a month to get as a subscription. Some cheap tat vaguely related to something you’re into. I cannot fathom *anyone* looking at that collection of shite and genuinely, hand-on-heart believing that it’s worth much more than $40, let alone $400.

Four cropped images from the GTA 6 Collector's Edition showing products — This can all be yours for the low, low price of… $400.

And I know games have been doing this for years. Every AAA game comes with an expensive edition that includes an action figure, some stickers, or whatever. But even by those standards, this feels both overpriced *and* lacklustre. Even in their own promo images, Rockstar and Take-Two couldn’t hide the fact that these things are cheaply-made shite, and some of them – like stickers and keychains – are the most basic, cheap, low-effort tat you could *possibly* throw into a collector’s edition.

To then tell players that they have to buy the actual game separately – and that their $400 is going on stickers, keychains, and plastic shite? I mean… what can I even say?

I think we’ve all known for a long time that Rockstar and Take-Two would push the boat out when it comes to monetising Grand Theft Auto VI’s launch. This is, after all, the company that sells “Shark Cards,” and is more guilty than most when it comes to normalising microtransactions in fully-priced games. But even knowing that GTA 6 was going to be monetised out of its backside… this collector’s edition still feels appalling.

Promo of the GTA 6 Collector's Edition box — The collector’s edition tat in its box.

Okay, okay. I promised you my thoughts on the game’s “Extended Look,” didn’t I? So let’s belatedly get into that!

Speaking as we were of Grand Theft Auto VI being excessively monetised, we have the deal Take-Two struck with Netflix; the “Extended Look” premiered exclusively on Netflix – a paid-for streaming platform – before being shown off to the rest of the world. How do we feel about that?

Though the “Extended Look” was only exclusive to Netflix for six hours, I still think it’s kind of a shitty thing to do to paywall what is, in essence, a glorified commercial. Not only that, but it generated a fair amount of ill-will towards the game, with folks rightly pointing out that locking your own marketing material away from fans, then demanding cash, isn’t a great idea. Will that translate to lower sales? No… not in any meaningful way, anyway. But it does feed into broader conversations about Take-Two and Rockstar being incredibly greedy, and has done nothing to help the game’s reputation.

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing Lucia on her phone with Jason — Lucia and Jason with Val.

On the content of the “Extended Look,” here’s what I’ll say: I thought the game looked good.

I was definitely getting more of a Red Dead Redemption II vibe than a Grand Theft Auto V vibe from the footage that was shown off, perhaps with some Cyberpunk 2077 thrown in for good measure. Those two games are a starting point for beginning to understand Grand Theft Auto VI, I feel, and with both of them being pretty darn good… well, that indicates to me that this’ll be a title I’m going to enjoy!

Red Dead Redemption II sold a whopping 85 million copies, which puts it behind Tetris, Minecraft, and – what else? – Grand Theft Auto V as the fourth-best-selling game ever. It did sell substantially fewer copies than GTA 5, but it’s an incredible game… and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. If Grand Theft Auto VI channels some of that style of storytelling and world-building… I for one will be a very happy bunny.

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing a hang glider — Parachuting/hang gliding seems to be back!

And I’m sure a lot of other folks will enjoy that, too. Even if Grand Theft Auto VI doesn’t outperform its predecessor, I think there’s huge potential for it to eclipse Red Dead II’s numbers – and within a matter of days of launch, it should’ve broken even and begun to turn a profit, even with the insane and highly-inflated budget that the game was afforded by Take-Two and Rockstar.

Nothing I saw in the “Extended Look” turned me off or made me feel less interested in GTA 6′s world or story, and I really didn’t notice any causes for concern in gameplay terms, either. I know some folks have criticised Grand Theft Auto VI for being locked at 30fps on console, but I felt the game looked great and seemed to be running smoothly. Speaking for myself, I’ll take a smooth 30fps over a stuttering and lagging attempt to reach 60fps any day of the week, and if a lower frame-rate is the compromise Rockstar had to make to squeeze this ambitious title onto current-gen hardware… it was a sacrifice worth making, in my view.

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing a shop robbery — Robbing a shop.

With the game’s story mode being so heavily emphasised – and literally being the only playable mode upon release – then the story will have to carry the game. Gameplay could be fantastic, but a narrative adventure lives or dies on the strength of its story. I have confidence in Rockstar, based on their past work – Red Dead Redemption II in particular. And with GTA 6 seeming to draw more on Red Dead II, that’s another positive note about the potential quality of its story.

I’m sure there will be opportunities in Grand Theft Auto VI to let loose in Vice City and just… go on a crime spree. That was where I had the most fun in several previous GTA titles! I had a blast tearing up those same streets in the original Vice City some two decades ago, and I’d often find that the game’s missions would be secondary to making my own fun, exploring the world, and getting into mischief! But Red Dead Redemption II, while it allowed players that same freedom, also felt like a game with a more curated story, and it was the game’s story that kept me coming back. I feel like GTA 6 is going to be more in that category, at least in single-player, with the open world serving the events of the narrative rather than being a pure sandbox. That’s my takeaway from the “Extended Look,” at any rate.

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing shooting from a car — Jason firing his weapon from a moving vehicle.

I don’t think we’ve seen enough from Jason, Lucia, or any of the other main characters – even after the “Extended Look” – to really get a feel for who they are or what their arcs will look like. We’ve been promised a “Bonnie and Clyde” type of story; a modern-day crime thriller. But we all know how Bonnie and Clyde’s stories ended – and how the gang’s stories ended in the Red Dead Redemption games, too, come to that!

Vice City – and, to an extent, other GTA games – saw players building city-spanning criminal empires. But I’m not sure something so elaborate and huge would fit with the tone of what we’ve seen so far. To me, this story feels a bit smaller in scope, more comparable to Red Dead II or Cyberpunk 2077 – the city continues to exist around the player, almost indifferent to their actions most of the time. While you can build up your characters in those worlds, I think it’s fair to say that you never quite conquer the entire city in the way that you do in some other titles.

Again, though, that’s just my preliminary read on things.

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing the character swap/top down view — Swapping between characters seems to work just like it did in *Grand Theft Auto V*.

So let’s wrap this up.

Gameplay? Looks good, though hardly groundbreaking in terms of being a third-person action/shooter. Performance? We saw a carefully-curated demo, but it was running on console and it looked solid. Narrative? Harder to judge, but there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic. The open world? It looked positively gigantic, with echoes of Cyberpunk 2077′s Night City in terms of how vast it is… and how small the player might feel within it.

Now all we need is a PC port and I’ll be all set!

Seriously, though… GTA 6 looks good. Which makes it kind of disappointing that Take-Two and Rockstar are such cheapskates when it comes to launching the game on PC. I’m not gonna buy an expensive console to play one game, so I’ll have to find something else to play while I wait for the inevitable PC port… hopefully next year, not in 2028 or 2029!

Still frame from the GTA VI Extended Look showing cars at the airport at night — Driving to the airport after dark.

I can understand not wanting to support Grand Theft Auto VI given some of Take-Two and Rockstar’s other moves. Locking trailers behind a paywall, selling cheap tat for $400, cutting out content from the game to be re-sold as part of a more expensive edition, trying to force PC players to buy two copies… the list goes on. And, of course, Rockstar is accused of union-busting and mistreating its staff here in the UK, which is pretty awful.

But in terms of the way the game looks, I’m not gonna lie: this could be one of the biggest and best titles of the decade.

So I hope this has been interesting! I won’t be reviewing Grand Theft Auto VI this year, obviously, but if there’s more to say about the game when it launches, I’ll be sure to cover any big stories right here on the website. And when that belated PC port finally arrives, I’m looking forward to getting my hands on GTA 6 for myself. When that happens, I’ll be sure to talk about the game some more, so I hope you’ll join me for that. Thanks for checking out my thoughts on the “Extended Look” today. See you in Leonida!

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.

I Recommend Not Pre-Ordering GTA 6

Thu 25.06.26Dennis

Excitement for the sequel to Grand Theft Auto V was always going to reach fever-pitch, so this level of hype was to be expected. But with pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI officially open… should you put your money down? Let’s get into all of that today.

Back in the day, when games came on cartridges or discs, pre-ordering could make sense in certain cases. There could be limited copies of some titles, especially at launch, and if you lived in a region like the rural area where I grew up, there might only be one or two video game retailers. If the store you went to had sold out of a particular title, it could mean a long journey to track down another one – or a long wait. I pre-ordered or reserved games under those circumstances a few times – and I did the same for books, video cassettes, and DVDs, too. When something you really want is coming out, and you don’t have the time or energy to queue up at midnight to grab a copy, pre-ordering or reserving your copy just… made a lot of sense.

Box art for Grand Theft Auto VI — Pre-orders for *GTA 6* are now live… but don’t bother.

But that isn’t the world we live in anymore.

Sure, some console players – especially on Nintendo, but also on PlayStation and Xbox – still buy physical copies of all of their games. But is that the norm anymore? And even if you’re one of the players in that category, chances are you still buy downloadable content, receive patches and updates digitally, or occasionally splash out on a digital-only title. The industry has moved on, and fewer and fewer discs and cartridges are sold every year.

Grand Theft Auto VI will be available digitally on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. There are literally *infinite* copies of digital games, so there’s no chance you’ll miss out. GTA 6 might sell out physically for a time – maybe. But even if it does, or even if it’s sold out in your local area, those digital copies will remain available. There’s no “FOMO,” because you have literally zero chance of missing out on playing Grand Theft Auto VI the day it launches – if that’s what you want to do.

Promo image for Grand Theft Auto 6 showing Jason — If you want this character costume, you’ll need to buy the $100 “ultimate edition.”

Nowadays, most big-budget games come with day-one patches and updates anyway, *especially* titles on disc. Day-one bug-fixes and last-second patches are commonplace. But here’s the thing with GTA 6: you don’t get a disc even if you buy a “physical copy;” all you get is a download code in a pretty case.

In short… there’s no advantage to buying the game physically over downloading it digitally, even if you have a slow internet connection.

Speaking as we were of bugs, do you remember Cyberpunk 2077? That game – which generated a similar level of hype back in 2020 – launched in such an appalling state that many folks considered it to be literally “unplayable,” and the game was yanked off Sony’s PlayStation Store as a result, with plenty of refunds being offered. Cyberpunk 2077 is, to me, the game that best embodies the “no pre-orders!” movement. If folks had been willing to wait even a day, a mere twenty-four hours, instead of rushing to pre-order… they’d have seen the state the game was in.

Still frame from the first GTA VI trailer showing cars on a busy street. — What kind of state will the game be in at launch?

To be clear, I’m categorically *not* suggesting that GTA 6 will launch in such a rotten state! Although the recent launch of the atrocious GTA 3 Trilogy Remaster should be enough to give anyone pause; that was a total fuck-up. But for such a big game, and one developed by Rockstar’s main team, I’m pretty confident that the launch version of GTA 6 will be functionally playable.

That doesn’t mean, however, that it will be the “best” version of the game.

Patches, bug fixes, and free updates happen all the time. Rockstar’s last two big games – Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption II – both received numerous patches after they launched, tweaking and improving them. The launch version of basically any game in 2026 is demonstrably worse than the version you might play even just a few days later. So, once again, why would you want to play on day one, knowing that to be the case?

Promo image for Grand Theft Auto 6 showing a gun — A gun which you can only get in the “ultimate edition” of the game.

It isn’t my intention to shit all over the hype or excitement anyone is feeling for Grand Theft Auto VI. I’m sure that the game will be entertaining, and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it one day, too. But I also believe we’re at a point now where pre-ordering a title isn’t just bad for individual players, it’s actively harmful to gaming as a whole. It encourages bad behaviour from games companies – things like paying extra to play the game on its *real* release date instead of a few days later, or releasing incomplete, bug-riddled messes in the full knowledge that they’re already going to make a huge profit. The biggest corporations in the industry are getting worse, charging higher prices for less content, and paywalling off more and more pieces of titles… and pre-ordering helps them get away with it.

I know, however, that I’m shouting into the void. Pre-order numbers for GTA 6 are going to be huge; this is arguably the most highly-anticipated release of the year across the *entire* entertainment sector. But I still think it’s worth *trying* to dissuade people from putting their money down unnecessarily for a title that – I would certainly argue – is overpriced, that we still don’t have a ton of information about, and to reward a publisher and a developer who, in my opinion, have been misbehaving pretty badly for years.

Still frame from the first GTA 6 trailer showing flamingos — Flamingos, as seen in the trailer.

Some of the things Rockstar and Take-Two have achieved with Grand Theft Auto V have been emulated – or attempted, anyway – by other titles across the games industry in the thirteen years since GTA 5 was released. Microtransactions and an in-game currency in a title that players have to pay for up-front has become normalised thanks, in large part, to Grand Theft Auto V’s success, and we’re seeing the impact of that now. Going all-in on live service, always-online multiplayer titles – as Rockstar and Take-Two have done – has been a huge weight around the neck of many studios and publishers across the entire video games industry, as corporations have tried to recreate GTA 5′s success… and income.

And there’s more.

Grand Theft Auto VI should’ve been created and released years ago. But because its predecessor has been such a cash cow, Rockstar and Take-Two put the game on hold. They also sacrificed GTA 5′s planned DLC at the altar of the game’s online mode, cancelled Agent – Rockstar’s planned Cold War-era spy title – and even quietly stepped away from Red Dead Online, not because it wasn’t profitable, but because it wasn’t *as* profitable as GTA 5′s online mode.

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

Grand Theft Auto V has been a double-edged sword for the games industry. On the one hand, it’s introduced lots of new players to interactive media, and demonstrated that video games can go toe-to-toe with films and TV programmes in terms of profitability and cultural impact. On the other, it poured diesel on the fire of the “live service” trend, pushing other companies further down that path – a path that has led to billions of dollars being pissed away on titles like Concord and Highguard, games that were never going to make their money back. And that’s been bad for the industry overall, as well as arguably caused game development elsewhere to be under-invested, to stagnate, and even regress in some cases.

Rockstar and Take-Two have become arrogant. Forgetting the series’ PC roots, Grand Theft Auto VI won’t get a simultaneous PC launch – something practically every other AAA title can manage. Ports of ancient games, like 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, are belatedly launched on PC for a ridiculous price tag. And there seems to be less of an expectation, and more of an *entitlement* in the Take-Two boardroom that GTA 6 will earn even more money even more quickly than its predecessor.

Even if the game is good… I don’t want to support a company like that. Certainly not by pre-ordering their latest title.

Promo image for Grand Theft Auto 6 showing the ultimate edition — There’s a more expensive edition, naturally, containing all of the game’s cut content.

Some of the conversation and analysis surrounding Grand Theft Auto VI seems to be praising Take-Two and Rockstar for resisting the temptation to try to launch the game with a $100 price tag. And that is ridiculous. GTA 6 is going to be $80 in the United States for the base version of the game – though, naturally, the “ultimate edition;” i.e. the complete version of the game *without* content having been cut out, will retail for $100. In the UK, that’s £70 for the basic version and £90 for the complete edition.

Since Nintendo launched the first $80 base version of a game with Mario Kart World, other greedy corporations in the industry have been salivating at the prospect of selling their own titles for the same money. We’ve seen it with Xbox, who tried to push The Outer Worlds 2 at that price, and there are other examples, too. But most titles, at least for now, still go for $70 or $60 – so this $80 price tag is nothing to celebrate, nor should Rockstar or Take-Two receive *any* praise whatsoever for capping their greed at a “mere” $80!

Promo image for Grand Theft Auto 6 showing a postcard — See you in Vice City… if the money-grubbing pricks at Take-Two ever launch the game on PC!

I’ve been a GTA player since the very first top-down game in the late ’90s. In fact. Grand Theft Auto is the first game I can remember buying that had a BBFC “18” rating. I had fun with that game, its sequel, and its London spin-off, and I enjoyed the series all over again on the Xbox, when I played Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas. I’m by no means a “hater” of this series, and I still hope to play and enjoy Grand Theft Auto VI if and when it comes to PC… and perhaps when it goes on sale!

But pre-ordering this game feels pointless, and even if I owned a current-gen console, I wouldn’t.

You gain nothing – the game’s all-digital anyway – and with patches, hotfixes, and updates bound to arrive within days or weeks of launch, why would you want to sign up to play a demonstrably, objectively *worse* version of the game? There are so many other things to play! If you’re like me, you’re bound to have a backlog of titles you haven’t gotten around to playing yet. And if you’re a subscriber to something like Game Pass, there’s a whole library of titles out there. I just don’t see any point in pre-ordering Grand Theft Auto VI when we don’t know what kind of state the launch version will be in, we don’t even know for certain that this long-delayed title will actually make its purported November relase date, and when it’s fully-digital anyway, even if you buy a “physical” copy. Do yourself a favour and wait… at least wait till launch day, if not a few days after. Make sure Take-Two and Rockstar have earned your $80-100 before you commit.

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.

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

Sat 03.01.26Dennis

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.

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.

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: The Delay and the Trailer

Sat 10.05.25Dennis

I was partway through writing this article about the recently-announced delay to Grand Theft Auto VI when Rockstar unexpectedly released the game’s second teaser trailer – so bear with me while I re-write a few sentences and shuffle things around!

The delay to Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be disappointing to a lot of people – but it’s also unquestionably the right call. Developer Rockstar Games is well-known in the industry for its abusive “crunch” practices in the run-up to big launches, so anything that potentially mitigates that and makes the working environment better for people is a hugely positive thing. Given Rockstar and Take-Two’s insane financial resources, and the continued revenue stream from Grand Theft Auto V’s online mode, there’s absolutely no justification for pushing to meet a self-imposed, arbitrary release window. If the game needs more time and more work, then delaying it is the right move.

*Grand Theft Auto VI* has been delayed to May 2026.

From a gameplay perspective, a delay is the right call, too. Since internet connectivity became commonplace on home consoles in the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 days, more and more corporations have taken what I call the “release now, fix later” approach to game design – releasing a broken, unfinished game with the promise of patches and updates later to smooth things out. This rarely works as intended, and there are so many examples of games which should’ve been good that ended up being soiled by a poor launch. Even success stories, like Cyberpunk 2077, are still tainted for a lot of players, and will always have a little asterisk next to them explaining that, while the final version of the game may have been great, the launch version was piss-poor.

I don’t have any “insider information” from Take-Two or Rockstar, so I don’t know what might’ve been going on behind the scenes to prompt this delay. There wasn’t even an official release date for Grand Theft Auto VI, just a vague “2025” from the original announcement. As I said at the time, a delay felt like a reasonable prospect, so I’m not particularly surprised by the news. A second delay from spring to autumn 2026 also feels plausible – so watch this space, I guess!

Part of the game’s open world as seen in the recent trailer.

I’ve said it before and I’ll undoubtedly say it again: game delays are a good thing and should be celebrated, not criticised. I get it: it’s never fun when you hear that a game you’re excited about is going to be delayed, but if it means the finished product will be better (and, y’know, actually finished) then it’s going to be worth it. A game as large as Grand Theft Auto VI purports to be will take time for QA testers to work through, and I’m content to give Rockstar and Take-Two additional time to polish the experience and launch a better, more stable, less glitchy game. Even if that means waiting a year or two!

Thankfully, the reaction to delays from most players and fans these days is mature and acknowledges that simple reality. I think all of us have been burned at least once by a buggy, glitch-riddled, clearly unfinished game – and nobody wants to go through that again! There will be some upset players, of course, but I think most folks are mature enough to understand that this news, while it may be disappointing, will ultimately mean the launch version of Grand Theft Auto VI will be more polished and just an all-around better experience.

Hopefully *Grand Theft Auto VI’*s delay will result in a better finished product.

I do have a couple of things to add about the game, though, particularly now that we’ve seen the second teaser trailer.

Firstly, I’m a little disappointed that we still haven’t actually seen any bona fide gameplay in any of the marketing material that Rockstar and Take-Two have released so far. Both teaser trailers may be comprised of “in-engine footage,” but they show cut-scenes, carefully-curated clips, and content that may have been rendered especially for the game’s marketing. What we haven’t seen is any actual gameplay, and while you might say that’s fair enough if the game is more than a year away from launch, Grand Theft Auto VI was, until a few days ago, on the schedule for this year. I would’ve expected to see some glimpse of its gameplay by now, especially with Rockstar preparing that second trailer.

Any idiot can put together cut-scenes, clips, and pre-rendered artwork and make a compelling trailer. Trust me, I used to work in games marketing, so I know what it takes to showcase even the worst and most uninspired titles! Some absolutely atrocious games look decent in their own marketing material, and it’s a bit of a red flag for a game to have potentially been a few months or even just a few weeks away from launch with no gameplay on show.

Any game can look exciting with a carefully edited trailer comprised of pre-rendered cut-scenes and CGI.

This leads into my next point. I… I don’t feel blown away by anything we’ve seen from Grand Theft Auto VI so far. With the caveat that we still haven’t seen any official gameplay, the pre-rendered footage and cut-scenes that have been shown off just haven’t really stood out to me as being particularly special. There are some fantastic-looking games at the moment, particularly in the third-person action/adventure space, and for a game that Take-Two may genuinely try to sell for $100… I haven’t really seen anything in the Grand Theft Auto VI footage that could come close to justifying that.

That doesn’t mean I think the game “looks bad” or will be unenjoyable. But rather that I’d say it doesn’t look like anything special compared to the current crop of AAA titles on the market. Elden Ring, the remastered version of The Last of Us Part II, Alan Wake II, and even Rockstar’s own Red Dead Redemption II – which is now six-and-a-half years old – don’t feel particularly far behind what I’ve seen of Grand Theft Auto VI. Considering the upcoming game’s price point and all the hype around it, I would’ve expected to see a bit more by now to really sell me on why this’ll be a “once-in-a-generation experience;” the kind of thing I can’t afford to miss out on.

Nothing on show has really blown me away so far.

Grand Theft Auto VI looks like it’s going to be an outlaw story; a “modern-day Bonnie and Clyde,” with protagonists Jason and Lucia starting from a low point but taking Vice City by storm. I like that idea in theory, though a narrative can be hard to judge at this distance! But what I really want to see from Grand Theft Auto VI is its world. The characters and the story are incredibly important, of course, but that’s something I’ll discover for myself as I play the game. At this point in the marketing, we need to get a feel for the scale and depth of the world, and start to see what new gameplay features might be included.

Red Dead Redemption II is Rockstar’s magnum opus, and one of the finest games I’ve ever played. But after more than six years – seven going on eight by the time Grand Theft Auto VI actually launches – and an entire console generation, we should be seeing improvements. Grand Theft Auto V was originally released in 2013 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and players who skipped Red Dead Redemption II will be expecting much more significant improvements and changes. So far, from a couple of pre-rendered trailers, I’m just not feeling much of that.

Jason and Lucia – the game’s protagonists.

I don’t doubt that Grand Theft Auto VI will be a good game – but with the level of hype that’s been swirling around the project for over a decade at this point, will it be a great one? Can it possibly live up to these sky high expectations – and its rumoured $2 billion budget? If the game is on par with other open world titles from the last few years, will that be good enough for players who’ve been waiting for it for such a long time? These are the questions that Rockstar and Take-Two will have to answer – and the marketing campaign so far, while it’s admittedly at an early stage, hasn’t exactly dazzled me.

For those inclined to seek out such things, there are leaked videos and images of Grand Theft Auto VI – some dating back several years. I don’t want to judge the game based on leaks; having worked in the games industry in the past, I know the final build of a game can differ substantially from early versions! But the leaks are undeniably part of the conversation – and again… nothing’s really blowing me away. I see what looks to be a solid third-person action/adventure game, similar in tone and style to Grand Theft Auto V thanks to the familiar tropical setting, and… that’s it. Pre-judging a game based on leaks is silly, but what I’ve seen so far reminds me why I thought it would’ve been better for Grand Theft Auto VI to have been set in a different environment and possibly even in an earlier time period, too.

Should *Grand Theft Auto VI* have been set in a different city without a beach and palm trees?

You might remember me talking about this years ago. Before we had any official news about Grand Theft Auto VI, I said that I feared a modern-day story set in another tropical city by the beach might just be too samey and too familiar, and wouldn’t do much to give players invested in Grand Theft Auto V a reason to switch. Time will tell, of course, but I wonder if part of the reason why I don’t feel so enthused by the recent trailer (and the leaked footage) is because of how samey and familiar parts of it feel.

So that’s it for now. Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed – and while that isn’t exactly fun, it’s good news in my book. I’d rather play a better, more polished version of the game a year later than a broken, buggy, unfinished version a year early. As to the story, setting, and gameplay, though… I’m not sure. I’m confident the game will be fun, and that could be good enough, I suppose. But for a game which could end up being the most expensive ever, raising the price of AAA games across the board, and after such a long wait in between titles? Rockstar and Take-Two still have work to do to convince me Grand Theft Auto VI will be worth the price of admission.

Oh, and there’s still not gonna be a simultaneous PC release, which is pretty shitty behaviour from Rockstar and Take-Two.

Grand Theft Auto VI is currently in development and is currently targeting a May 2026 release date. Grand Theft Auto VI is the copyright of Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.