Recently, we reported on some circulating rumors that Grand Theft Auto VI would be announced before much longer. They were far from reputable, as we pointed out, as they came from a random 4chan user using the tried-and-true defense of “dude, trust me, I know a guy” rather than offering any sort of actual proof. Despite this, they were adamant that the title would be announced on March 25th, which was about three weeks ago, as of writing this.
Of course, that announcement never came, and we’re here now to discuss the exact opposite. According to recent news reported by Kotaku (a much, much more reputable source than random 4chan users, mind you), it seems that Grand Theft Auto VI is indeed Rockstar’s next game… but it’s still far, far away.
BREAKING –– REPORT: Grand Theft Auto 6 is Rockstar’s next game, but it's still in early development. #GTA6
The plan is “to start out with a moderately sized release." This will then be followed with regular GTA 6 updates over time. (Via Kotaku) pic.twitter.com/MlrFfVIDzF
— GTA 6 Intel (@GTA6Intel) April 16, 2020
The news was shared in an interview with Kotaku and Rockstar executive Jennifer Kolbe. Rockstar has been spending their time recently changing the culture in their working space, namely to combat the prevalent “crunch culture” that exists in many developers – and it seems like they’ve been very successful, despite Kolbe stating that there’s still a good amount of work to be done:
“We have taken conscious steps to improve our approach to developing games in order to reduce the need for overtime,” Kolbe discussed in the interview. “We realise we still have plenty to do in this are and will continue to take steps so we can more accurately predict and schedule games and DLC in a way that is more sustainable but still allows us the creative flexibility to iterate on the incredibly ambitious and complex games we make.”
That’s a mouthful, but the gist of it is but good news and pretty simple; Rockstar is trying to make it so that the games are produced by a team that is passionate, devoted, and driven, rather than one that’s being pushed to exhaustion by constant and quick deadlines. Ultimately, this makes better games – but it also takes longer to make them.
As time flies, it’s been almost seven years since GTA V. While Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in the years since V‘s launch, there haven’t been any full titles in the GTA franchise (though, to be fair, there’s been a lot of DLC for V). Unfortunately, it seems like there’ll still be a good amount of time before we see the sixth game in the franchise, and when it does come it’ll look a bit different from the previous installments.
According to the interview with Kotaku, the plan for GTA VI is to come out with a “moderately sized release” rather than the enormous games that Rockstar normally releases and improve on it from there, adding more and more content. This’ll make it so the team doesn’t have to make such a massive project, while also delivering it quicker and giving players more DLC.
Of course, the skeptical, cynical gamer may see something else, because more DLC also means more money, or more drive forcing you to a seasonal DLC pass. Are they really making a smaller game because they want to relax the team, or is it because they know they could make a smaller game and churn out way more money with it if they charge for the rest of the content that would make it a Rockstar-sized title?
