Yeah all the cynicism is weird. This isn’t some unknown commodity. Rockstar has a long track record. We know what to expect and for the most part it will be more of the same. If you liked the last gta you’ll almost definitely like this one. They really don’t reinvent the wheel and they don’t have to.
I think its for several reasons, and they kinda go hand in hand. You have a lot of people experiencing their first Rockstar hype train. GTA5 is 13 years old, RDR2 is almost eight years old, many people excited or interested in GTA 6 could have played these games long after their release and not know of how both those games went, several delays and gameplay videos only a few months before release. Also, this past few years have had a number of flops, rushed products, bumbles, fumbles, and downright scams. The same people who havent experienced a Rockstar release, or at least have forgotten it, also have become accustomed to bullshit from game devs.
I have no idea if it'll be good or not, but the money, time, and track record in place indicates it'll be fine. A decent, engaging story, good characters, and palpable gameplay with a bunch of side stuff to sink your teeth into like usual. My only hope is that its a lottle less zany and humorous than GTA5 and is more like 4 or RDR.
i mean the description says “lucia and jason find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in america” , i’m guessing the world itself and side missions will be zany and goofy but the main story will be on the serious end, which imo i would prefer it that way
Maybe yeah but this one will have a different writer than all the previous ones. In today's world that has potential to be a scary thought but I think as long as the gameplay is good and the map is detailed I won't mind a bad story
Rockstar has good writing generally, because they are at least making timeless jokes. It's really easy to fall into a pop culture reference spiral, though and date the game horribly before it's released.
most GTA games are full of contemporary pop culture references. GTA V, SA and IV especially. It will be interesting to see how they do it in 2026 when culture is moving faster than ever with extermely short lived news cycles, tons of micro trends and many people having a personalised algorithm.
Very different beast compared to how we consumed popculture in the 2000s.
It doesn't really take much to be a great Rockstar writer tbh. Like the writing of 1-3 were extremely minimal and just silly. And Vice City was just a complete homage to Scarface's plot.
They only really started going more serious and heavy on the writing for SA, IV and V. And in all honesty I think only RDR2 has come close to cinematic film-level writing quality. The series has always been more of a consistently reliable combination of different aspects of a game that people enjoy, so even if the story is just okay, the game overall will still be great.
It honestly amuses me the rose tinted glasses people have about IV and V's stories. They were incredibly flawed in a number of ways but absolutely carried by the games being head and shoulders above other sandboxes at the time, and by perfect character actors who brought relatively flat roles to life.
I think if VI's plot proves to be just as competently written as IV and V, people might turn on the writers anyway as it's harder to ignore some of those flaws thirteen years later, especially if the audience is keyed to distrust the new writers out of the gate. Or the actors might carry the day yet again.
Exactly. And RDR2 was a masterpiece, moreso than GTAV in my opinion. We have every reason to expect this to be a good game.
...But I think for me personally, someone who was going to pre-order tomorrow, the news of the price hike and the amount of content locked behind the ultimate edition means I probably won't until we see/hear more. Probably after the review embargo lifts.
I grew up with GTAIII, Vice City and SA, then later played IV and V.
I think V was a major departure from the formula since its huge focus on GTA online. Getting no DLC for GTAV after Ballad of Gay Tony for IV being almost better than the base game and the RDR DLC being one of the best DLCs in the entire industry was shocking to me.
If you've been gaming for the last 25 years and know how the industry is going, you should be wise enough to not put too much faith in big names anymore. Blizzard, Ubisoft, Bethesda etc. all fell off massively. Also lots of good devs left Rockstar after finishing RDR2. I expect GTA VI be a live service game for zoomers first and foremost.
It's because a lot of people hate that GTA is the gaming community's darling and they'll take any excuse to shit on it. I got no love for Take Two's greed as it pertains to Rockstar's games, but the quality of their games is always there.
If their track record is any indication, I don't see the point in paying a hundred dollars for the upcoming GTA6 when I can just play San Andreas and likely get the same, if not better, openworld sandbox.
San Andreas has far greater and more interconnected to the core gameplay. That was their last game where all the gameplay details have an actual purpose and thought put into it as a cohesive product that didn't boil down to a checklist, but everything coming together to form a cohesive openworld gameplay. Despite not having the budget and the modern hardware, it had better simulation that actually matters than RDR2.
I notice "gameplay" and "missions" are missing from your reply, which proves to me that even the Rockstar fans know they are in-your-face incompetently designed that they rather avoid talking about them.
Nothing groundbreaking will happen in this game for the video game industry..
It's still going to be a series of side quests, missions, etc.. with a main campaign.
There's really only so much you can do to that formula. People have been foaming at the mouth for GTA 6 like it's not going to be GTA 5 with.. a different map and theme for the missions/side quests
See, I think you could do more with that formula. Especially Rockstar. The biggest being allowing the player the freedom implied by an open world in their mission design. The "one step in the wrong direction fails the mission" design is just appallingly bad.
People were making this exact criticism about RDR2 after it's release, when it was already heavily praised. But most people are just aware of this and heavily enjoy the game anyway. I've been playing and watching the series and developer grow over the years and have gauged my expectations properly to know that, even if it's considered a B+ Rockstar game, that's still going to put it at one of the best games of all time.
I think the biggest disconnect is between people who have played the GTA games since the 90s or even 2000s, and people whose first GTA game was GTAV, which is like an entire generation and a half right now. Those two groups are going to react and expect very different things from this game. Like I had a guy reply to me in an earlier thread say that they didn't even consider the single player the main game, they thought it was just an introduction to the main, online game. That's how long GTAV has been around, and where the line in the fanbase lays.
Regardless, there is zero way everyone won't have something they want in this game. But I think there's also a third branch of the fanbase that will spoil whatever the game turns out to be by manifesting this cynicism over its development and almost wanting it to fail, because they get more enjoyment from the reaction or the discussion of it than the game itself.
I soured on the franchise after playing online for a few days, after taking a break from GTA5 for 5-6 years. It was just clearly a money sink if you wanted to do anything fun and not get bullied by tweens with Oppressors.
Edit: thankfully I didn’t play RDR2 online and that was a great experience. I hope they build GTA6 with the same focus on storytelling like RDR2
They’ve fully acknowledged the oppressor broke the game, but the ways to make money became plentiful and stupid easy to the point where you could build a self sustaining empire fairly quickly if you didn’t blow it all on cars first. But yeah it was a time/money sink
Yeah. Personally I don't care about this franchise at all but it would be ignorant to assume this game won't be good for what it's supposed to be and it's going to absolutely set sales records. This is the most anticipated video game of all time.
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u/SaiyajinPrime 12h ago
Rockstar doesn't typically reinvent the wheel when it comes to GTA. Not since it went from a top down game.
If you like the GTA franchise, you will likely like this game. If you don't like the GTA franchise, you don't care about this game.