When should Rockstar ideally release GTA 6?

Rockstar Games is taking a long time to make any announcements about GTA 6. Nonetheless, it continues to be the most talked-about topic on the internet.

With the highly successful GTA series, Rockstar Games has cemented its position in the video game industry. GTA 3, the series' first 3D release, was hailed as a game-changer in the open-world action-adventure genre. Since then, any game with even the slightest resemblance to GTA's gameplay has been labeled as a "GTA clone."

In the early 2000s, Rockstar released three GTA games in a row, each one hugely popular and more successful than the one before it. GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas were released in 2001, 2002, and 2004 respectively.

GTA 4, the next big installment, came out in 2008, with a comparatively larger gap in between than previous ones. GTA 5 came out in 2013 with an even bigger gap of five years. And since then, we haven't had anything related to a new GTA game.

Rockstar has consistently broken sales records and received praise for its lucrative releases, such as the GTA and Red Dead series. Yet, the industry giant has been completely silent about its next title in the GTA franchise.

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Why Rockstar is taking so long to announce GTA 6

One of the main reasons Rockstar is keeping things under wraps may be due to the catastrophic launch of a similar title, Cyberpunk 2077. The game was announced in 2012, even before GTA 5's launch, and the first trailer came out the next year.

For seven years, CD Projekt Red kept feeding the hype train, increasing fans' expectations every time with new trailers, announcements, and gameplay footage. The final product was a title that wasn't even half-done and became a prime example of how a game shouldn't be made.

This may have prompted Rockstar to keep things hush-hush before much of GTA 6 has been finalized and not rush over the project. Another reason for their nonchalance may be rooted in a much more familiar topic, that of profit.

GTA 5 and its online variant are the most lucrative business ventures that the company has ever produced. The amount of money being generated every year by GTA Online makes no financial sense for Rockstar to currently launch a new GTA title.

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When should GTA 6 be released?

GTA 6's release date has already sparked a slew of jokes among fans. Some say that the game will be released when their grandkids grow up. Others dismiss the game's existence altogether, claiming instead that Rockstar will keep on re-releasing the game on future consoles.

At this point, Rockstar has beaten Bethesda to become the butt of re-release jokes. Where the Elder Scrolls series keeps on releasing Skyrim remasters, GTA Online is seemingly going in the same direction.

According to many fans, 2023 would be a plausible release date for GTA 6, but only if the game had been in development for all these years. Some speculate that the "leaks" weren't even leaks at all and were possibly intentional, claiming that it was Rockstar's way of revealing the game's existence.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the opinion of the writer.