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Even the most die-hard fans of the GTA franchise would agree that not all of its games have been perfect. While the Grand Theft Auto series, as a whole, ultimately does more good than bad, fans have indeed voiced complaints regarding some elements of these games.
Rarely do game franchises achieve the level of social relevance and position in pop culture like the GTA franchise, and with it comes an unimaginable level of scrutiny. The lens by which each game gets inspected is magnified to no end, and sometimes, the issues might not be universal.
However, there are some nagging elements in the GTA franchise that have persisted over the years. Maybe its time for Rockstar Games to address some of them. Here, we look at some annoying aspects of this series that the publisher should get rid of come the next game.
5 bothersome aspects about GTA that Rockstar should fix in the next installment
1) Outdated Mission Structure
Rockstar Games has been a pioneer of the open-world genre, and through GTA, it has been able to make the genre almost an industry standard. Rockstar's revolutionary game design structure blew everything else out of the water in the 2000s.
However, since GTA 3, the mission structure and game design of all games in the series have been mostly identical. Nearly every mission plays out in the same way, with the player having little to do in terms of making a choice or changing his/her approach.
It does seem like the genre has overtaken Rockstar's approach to the open-world, with games like Metal Gear Solid 5 and Breath of the Wild setting new standards of what an open-world title means.
The linear mission structure is in stark contrast with the otherwise massively freeing open-world. Rockstar needs to re-think its approach and perhaps go for a "gamey" game rather than trying to create interactable movies.
2) Female Representation
The GTA franchise has never had the best of reputations when it comes to the portrayal of female characters. Largely, characters from the fairer sex have either been relegated to the sidelines, objectified insanely, or used as a punchline.
There has been little to no development or nuance to female characters in the GTA games, which is frustrating for a large portion of the gaming community, who are female. The video game industry, as a whole, has been guilty of this, and the GTA franchise is reflective of the industry's lack of nuance.
However, what is most puzzling is that Rockstar has shown bright spots previously in games like Red Dead Redemption 2. This game had powerful and empowered female characters such as Ms Grimshaw, and most famously, Sadie Adler.
Perhaps Rockstar has finally learned how to write good and interesting female characters, and GTA 6 would finally put an end to the streak of terrible representation.
3) Shark Cards
GTA Online is a fantastic online multiplayer experience, perhaps even one of the best currently in the gaming landscape. This game has been able to evolve way past its initial promise, and into something far more successful than players initially imagined.
It comes at no extra cost along with each copy of GTA 5, which is an excellent move by Rockstar and scores it a lot of brownie points in the community. But the publisher isn't the only one guilty of microtransactions, which has long been established as a scourge of modern-day gaming.
Mobile games and their free-to-play model justifies the need for microtransactions to support the game. Still, the case becomes a little muddled up when AAA games incorporate the same microtransactions.
With GTA Online becoming a standalone title on the PS5, perhaps it is time to get rid of microtransactions altogether. As GTA Online is dangerously close to devolving into a "pay-to-win" situation, which is what Rockstar must avoid at all costs.
4) Massive Load Times/ Matchmaking
This is one element that is perhaps the most easily solvable, as it isn't deeply-rooted in game design or the writing of GTA games. This issue has more to do with the technical efficiency of the titles.
Both GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are massive games, whose scale and scope is nigh unmatched by other offerings in the genre. The trade-off comes in the form of the absolutely staggering load times.
Even on recent tests, Red Dead Redemption 2 was taking up to 30 seconds of load time on next-gen hardware (Xbox Series X). While it is a significant improvement from the current-gen hardware, it still leaves a lot to be desired.
Finding a match and jumping right in should be as quick as possible, but GTA Online will test a player's patience to an insane degree. Switching between games can be extremely frustrating, and the constant disconnection is one of the biggest detractors to the Online experience.
Rockstar must take a long, hard look at its Online component as well as the load times for the Story Mode and figure out how to do it more efficiently.
5) Filler Missions
The GTA franchise can be accused of a lot of things, not all of them completely fair. However, none can lob complaints at Rockstar for padding out the game with filler missions all that much.
But GTA 5 is the biggest culprit when it comes to the presence of filler missions that add little to nothing to the game. A lot of these tasks boil down to merely driving from one place to the other while characters talk, and the conversation adds nothing to the story.
Missions such as the one where players, as Trevor, must complete a set of tasks on the Docks are egregious and no amount of "narrative through gameplay" arguments will ever justify their presence.
While earlier, advertising the number of "missions" was a massive part of the marketing campaign, the industry has moved past that. Rockstar likes to show off its writing chops every once in a while with these "talking" sections and filler missions, but it will have to come up with a less annoying way to do so.
Essentially, a game should be paced exceptionally well, with each story moment or mission adding something to the narrative, and not just serving as a way to pad out the game.
