As you might’ve noticed by the titanic, earthquake-causing footsteps of an industry giant rolling over in its year-long delay slumber, Grand Theft Auto 6 has dropped a new trailer. And while my rational mind wants to put ‘it’s a doozy’, here, I feel like that’s a colossal understatement.
Far from just likely melting your computer, GTA 6 looks gorgeous in a way that defies the series’ open world scale. The wrinkles on Jason’s shirt, the hyper-realism of the evening light playing off the bars on a state prison, the little cracks and imperfections of a ‘keep clear’ sign that’s been artificially made to endure the wear and tear of the dysfunctional society the game’s parodying.
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I get the same feeling watching this trailer that an Arctic researcher might watching a Lovecraftian horror breach the briny waves. I’m a sailor torn out of the golden age of piracy, staring at a picture of a cruise liner and wondering how it floats. I’m an ant being introduced to the concept of a lawnmower.
If I sound like I’m being up this game’s fundament, I sort of am—but when some of my colleagues say “no-one does it like Rockstar”, I can’t help but think of that phrase as an omen of some kind, said in the way you might say: “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”.
This 13-years-in-development creature just isn’t something that exists in the normal constraints of the gaming industry. I mean—despite my uneasy feelings and paranoia, borne out of a job that has me able to recite a dozen crushing layoffs from memory, it’s clear that big-budget games aren’t dead just yet.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows did quite well for itself, and the big-names in Japan are doing alright. Well, they would be, if tariffs weren’t happening. There are also plenty of heavyweight studios with irons in the fire—the next Witcher from CD Projekt Red’ll likely shake the firmament, and Death Stranding 2 is looking similarly gorgeous and mystifying.
But we’re also in the twilight years of several industry giants. While Ubisoft clings on after an extended slump, Rocksteady wobbles after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Bioware is unrecognisable, and probably won’t be making a Dragon Age game again with how much institutional knowledge EA just shed. Bethesda kinda doesn’t know how to make a Bethesda game anymore. Every mainline Final Fantasy title Square Enix makes is utterly gorgeous, and unfailingly behaving below expectations anyway.
I don’t think doom is coming for Rockstar, not in the slightest—it might not even be coming for big-budget games from traditional publishers. But still, there’s something in the air.
As far as Take-Two is concerned, GTA Online has a thick enough bankroll for the company to take its sweet time. Similarly, when GTA 6 does hit in 2026 (probably), it’ll likely be one of the most successful videogames ever made. There’s a reason anyone else making games is scrambling to get out from under its shadow.
There’s also the darker side of the Rockstar pedigree that allows it to do, well, this—Red Dead Redemption 2 had a similar level of proportionately boggling scope, and that game was built off the back of “death march” crunch. Rockstar’s promised to be better, and it very well may have done so. Still, even if things’ve changed, the path Take-Two took to get here isn’t a pleasant one.
But I think we can agree it’s a unique beast, right? Who else gets to comfortably sit on a pile of money while taking 13 entire years to make their next instalment? And who, gosh darnit, is doing it like Rockstar? I can name some studios that’re getting close, but if this trailer’s any indication, they’ll be left two steps behind once more.
We’ll just have to see. I’m not entirely convinced that blockbusters are on their way out, but if GTA 6 delivers on even two-thirds of the sheer detail and scope it’s promising in these trailers, it’ll be an architectural marvel, non-Euclidian and impossible to craft for anyone but the big R. And if trends continue, it might be another 14 years before we get anything like it—and who knows where we’ll be in 2040.
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