GTA 6 won’t live up to the hype but that’s okay

Grand Theft Auto 6 is easily the most-anticipated game currently in development, as players have been desperately waiting for a new entry in the series for over a decade. But with so much hype surrounding GTA 6, it’s impossible for the game to live up to the expectations.

Rockstar Games have finally revealed GTA 6, completely breaking the internet in the process. The first trailer for the hotly anticipated sequel gave us our first official look at the new version of Vice City, as well as the game’s protagonist – Lucia.

Fans of the series have been itching for more Grand Theft Auto for over a decade at this point, while the ever-popular GTA Online did its best to keep them occupied. During this time, the community has been alive with rumors, requests, and theories about what the next title will be.

With so many years worth of speculation behind and build-up excitement, it’s now over to the devs to try and meet those lofty expectations. But at this point, GTA 6 will inevitably be something of a letdown.

A Mount Chiliad of expectations

It’s no secret that video game fans often like to let their imagination run away with them when a new and exciting project is in development, especially when it’s been worked on for a long time. We saw the exact same thing with titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, and even No Man’s Sky, which received a ton of hype in the years leading up to their release.

By that time, we build up an idea in our heads that they’re going to be the game to end all games, that finally deliver limitless freedom and keep us occupied for years to come. So, when we’re met with a final product that looks and feels like something we’ve played before, with all the recognizable features and limitations, it inevitably disappoints us.

The talk surrounding GTA 6 began shortly after GTA 5 hit shelves, as players wondered how far the follow-up could go. It didn’t take long for alleged ‘leaks’ revealing a country-sized map that allowed players to visit different continents started to appear online, which is a good example of what some fans were hoping Rockstar would conjure up.

Ultimately, based on the leaked footage from 2022 and reveal trailer, it appears that what we’ll actually be getting is an expanded version of Vice City and the surrounding state of Leonida. While this will likely be plenty big enough for all the shenanigans we’ve come to expect from the series, there’s no doubt that some may be unsatisfied that GTA 6 doesn’t span at least the full United States.

How much freedom is enough?

Freedom has always been the biggest selling point of the GTA series. Dropping players into a fully explorable map complete with cars to drive, shops to visit, and, of course, pedestrians to murder is as addictive today as it was when GTA 3 pioneered the open-world genre back in 2001. But how much further can we realistically go?

GTA 5’s Los Santos delivered everything that most players could possibly dream of in a sandbox: a sprawling city to race around, diverse areas from mountains to beaches, and even the occasional UFO to mix things up.

Meanwhile, Red Dead Redemption 2 took that concept and added a level of detail and realism never seen before in a game of its kind. The way the snow crunched under our character’s feet or the process of picking up and inspecting individual items before buying them is still impressive over five years later, so it’s tough to see how it can be topped.

Of course, GTA 6 will almost definitely go bigger and better. I fully expect there to be more vehicle options, guns, and side content than ever before, on a map that will take dozens if not hundreds of hours to completely explore.

In the end, however, there will be a limit to how much freedom GTA 6 can pack in. The map will still have boundaries, certain buildings won’t be open inside, and there’s no way to cram every single recreational activity that players might want into a single game.

But after all of the hype that has been growing and theories about the scale of the next entry, it seems like fans are hoping for much more than a larger map, extra minigames, and a brand-new story when GTA 6 finally drops in 2025.

If anyone can, Rockstar can

All of this being said, GTA 6 does have a trump card in the form of the team behind it – Rockstar Games. The legendary studio is in a unique place compared to every other developer in the industry, in the sense that they have virtually infinite resources to call upon as they try to deliver on their vision.

The continued success of GTA Online means that they aren’t under the same pressure to roll out a new game every few years, affording them the time to work on and polish their projects that other devs just don’t have. With GTA 5 being the most successful entertainment product of all time at launch and years of Shark Card purchases, they can also invest the kinds of resources that most studios can’t comprehend.

Plus, let’s not forget the pedigree of the people involved, many of whom worked on the likes of San Andreas, GTA 4, and obviously GTA 5 – all of which are games that defined their respective generations.

What all this means is that if any developer has the time, money, and skill to actually meet the incredible expectations going into GTA 6, it’s the same people who are actually in charge of making it. It’s impossible to predict how games will stride forward until someone goes ahead and does it, and no team is better placed to produce something that blows everyone away than Rockstar.

Whether or not GTA 6 will meet the expectations of fans who have waited so long to get their hands on it remains to be seen, but I can’t help but feel like there will be significant backlash. Not because the game will be bad – I expect it to be great – but because of the unprecedented levels of anticipation going into it.

But one thing is for sure, once GTA 6 finally hits shelves we’ll be talking about it for years to come, for better or for worse.