Rockstar Games has been quietly working on Grand Theft Auto VI for eight years now. That’s longer than some console generations last. But here’s the thing nobody’s really talking about — the world has completely changed since 2018.
When Rockstar first put pen to paper for GTA VI’s script, TikTok was still called Musical.ly. ChatGPT didn’t exist. NFTs were a weird crypto experiment. Tesla’s autopilot was barely functional. Meanwhile, streaming culture was just starting to explode, and OnlyFans wasn’t even on most people’s radar.
Now, someone’s finally asking the obvious question.
“They’ve been working on GTA VI for so long that are they going to include any of the new things? AI, Crypto, NFTs, Autonomous cars, Trump, Robots, OnlyFans, Streamers, etc. When did they write the script? They started working on the game in 2018. A LOT has happened since then” — @AutismCapital
This hits different when you really think about it. GTA has always been about capturing the cultural moment — the music, the politics, the tech, the weird stuff people are obsessed with. But what happens when your “moment” stretches across nearly a decade?
Let’s be real about what’s changed since 2018. AI went from science fiction to your phone’s keyboard. Crypto crashed and burned and somehow came back stronger. Self-driving cars went from “five years away” to actually driving around cities. Streaming culture basically took over entertainment. Social media platforms rose and fell faster than GTA loading screens.
Meanwhile, the political landscape shifted completely. The pandemic changed how we think about work, social interaction, and digital spaces. Even the way people talk has evolved — try explaining “rizz” or “no cap” to someone from 2018.
Notably, this isn’t just a Rockstar problem. The whole industry is wrestling with development timelines that stretch way too long. Cyberpunk 2077 started development when smartphones were still new. The Last Guardian took so long that the PS3 became retro. Duke Nukem Forever… well, let’s not go there.
But GTA is different. The series has always been a cultural time capsule. Vice City perfectly captured the 80s aesthetic. San Andreas nailed early 2000s hip-hop culture. GTA V felt like it was ripped straight from 2013’s headlines about social media fame and financial corruption.
The question isn’t whether Rockstar can make a good game — they obviously can. It’s whether they can make a game that feels like it belongs in 2026 (or whenever it actually launches). How do you write dialogue about crypto when you started writing before most people knew what Bitcoin was?
There’s also the technical side. Game engines from 2018 weren’t built for some of the stuff we take for granted now. Real-time ray tracing was barely a thing. AI-powered NPCs were pure fantasy. Cloud gaming was just starting to be viable.
Rockstar has options, of course. They could have been updating the script as they go. Maybe they planned for this and kept the story framework flexible. The company isn’t exactly known for talking about their process, so we’re all just guessing.
But history suggests they might be stuck. Previous GTA games had pretty locked-in storylines and cultural references. When you’re dealing with voice acting, motion capture, and complex cutscenes, making major changes gets expensive fast.
The industry has been moving toward live service updates partly because of this exact problem. Games like Fortnite and Among Us can pivot with cultural trends in real-time. Traditional single-player games? Not so much.
Meanwhile, other studios are watching this situation closely. If GTA VI launches and feels like it was written in 2018, that’s going to send shockwaves through development planning everywhere. Studios might start building more flexibility into their long-term projects.
There’s precedent for this working out, though. Red Dead Redemption 2 took eight years too, and it felt timeless rather than dated. But westerns are easier — horses don’t get software updates.
What’s next depends a lot on Rockstar’s approach. If they’ve been smart about this, GTA VI will somehow feel both classic and current. If not, we might get a really polished game that feels like a museum piece on day one.
Either way, this whole situation highlights a bigger question for the industry: how long is too long for game development? And in a world that changes this fast, maybe eight years is just too much time to stay relevant.
