[[{“value”:”
Grand Theft Auto 6 is nearly here. Despite delays being so common these days, I finally feel confident about the game’s November 19 release date. Previously, I always waited for the other shoe to drop–for GTA 6 to be delayed over and over again. But this one feels like it’s going to stick.
When it releases, it’s only the single-player game that’ll be there on launch day. The GTA 6 version of GTA Online, in whatever form that takes, will come later. But more interesting than when the next era of GTA Online arrives is how it arrives. Since GTA 5 debuted, we’ve seen the emergence of what some call Forever Games: live-service games that consistently shift what they look like and how they play, but rarely ask players to reset all of their progress. Sure, a game like Fortnite offers major seasonal makeovers, but you still take all of your skins and accolades with you. When GTA 6 goes online, will it ask its millions of returning players to leave all their money, cosmetics, and progress behind?
It’s a huge question mark as we head toward the release of what may be the biggest game in video game history. There are a few approaches Rockstar could take, but seemingly none that avoid creating headaches for one group of players or another. Let’s break them down.
GTA 6 Online is a separate experience, living alongside GTA 5 Online
One option is to follow the GTA 5 model and launch a new GTA Online mode as an extension of GTA 6. But in that scenario, how much of that new experience will respect the time and money investment millions of players already have in the older version of GTA Online? If it’s like the move from GTA 4 to GTA 5, nothing would come along for that ride, but expectations are different today than they were in 2013.
Presumably, you won’t be able to bring everything with you–at the very least, mansions aren’t going to be moved from Los Santos to Vice City. But what about your money, clothing, weapons, and vehicles? These are all aspirational items in the GTA Online world that could seemingly be brought into the new game, if not for the imbalance they’d create in the community. You’re not really meant to have such a head start, as though you’ve entered GTA 6 cheat codes.
Is Rockstar going to let players bring these high-value items onto the neon-lit streets of its new game on day one? Things like clothing wouldn’t even fit, as the fashion of Vice City and Los Santos isn’t exactly the same. Each world has its own aesthetic, so even past the technical hurdles to making this happen–and those are substantial–there’s an artistic problem to solve, too. Fortnite gets away with it because it’s essentially a Funko Pop game where all brands and art styles are mashed together. GTA, however, is not.
How much of their avatar’s experience do GTA Online players expect to bring with them into GTA 6’s multiplayer world, and to what extent can Rockstar fulfill that expectation? Past games with plans for the far-off future, such as Destiny and Guild Wars, have had to make amends with their communities when sequels severed significant ties to players’ earlier accomplishments. GTA Online’s predicament is arguably worse, given the ability for players to spend real-world money to acquire their arsenals. This is a huge, looming question as we wait to learn more about what GTA Online looks like a year or two from now.
Maybe GTA 6 will get its online portion, and it’ll be a clean slate for everyone. Perhaps the simplest answer is that this is what Rockstar plans because it’s what it’s always done. But in 2013, few games other than PC MMOs were really meant to go on forever the way Fortnite, Roblox, or perhaps even GTA Online are today. Perhaps this has inspired Rockstar to rethink how it handles the transition of GTA Online–a game that is totally noncommittal about sequels or numbers in its title and can even be bought as a standalone experience, mind you.
Who gets mad:
- Players who bought GTA Online standalone and who would then have to upgrade to the new GTA Online
- Players who invested lots of time and/or money in GTA Online already, who can’t bring much, if anything, with them
- Friend groups who can’t play together anymore
GTA Online gets a GTA 6 patch
Suppose Rockstar does take a markedly different approach to GTA 6’s online appendage. GTA Online eventually evolved from a component of GTA 5 to a standalone purchase. That could signal Rockstar is prepared to update GTA Online with–let’s call it–the “Vice City Update,” essentially remodeling the game from the ground up, similar to a new Fortnite chapter Epic puts out every winter. It’s the same “game,” as in the same tile on your console, but by way of a patch you download, it has completely changed into something new. This approach could go one of two ways.
GTA 6 Online fully replaces GTA 5 Online
This would be a departure from Rockstar’s past way of doing things, but it would be the more modern method, bringing it in line with other Forever Games. Like the other approach, it may or may not let you carry over your avatar. It may or may not pay tribute to your past accolades. It may or may not port your in-game money, clothing, and vehicles. But the glaring issue here is that it would erase GTA 5’s version of multiplayer from playable history.
Though some players would be mad at GTA 6’s online mode if it ignored their GTA 5 multiplayer accomplishments in a future in which they coexist, that’s probably a better path forward than completely disappearing the existing GTA Online experience. This approach would allow Rockstar to move all of its players–and all of its focus–to one game, which may be an attractive idea for the development team. That said, this would mean players on last-gen consoles (or PC) can’t play GTA Online at all. Those with a PS5 or Xbox Series X|S might lament the erasure of the old GTA Online, but they’d at least be able to access the new version.
Whereas the other path will annoy the most deeply invested players by severing at least some of the ties to their thousands of gameplay hours, this approach ditches the playability of those more dated experiences completely.
There’s also the question of when, if ever, Rockstar would give away the GTA 6 Online update to players as a free patch. If you already own GTA Online but don’t own GTA 6, would you be granted the Vice City Update for free when it arrives? Again, the questions surrounding this whole topic feel extremely messy.
Who gets mad:
- Players on last-gen hardware and PC who can’t access the Vice City Update without a new, expensive console
- Players who want to keep playing GTA 5’s multiplayer
- Players who preorder GTA 6 just to play its multiplayer, who then learn they may not even need it
Every Grand Theft Auto 6 Character Revealed (So Far)
GTA Online is updated, letting Los Santos and Vice City coexist
Probably the most attractive option is for GTA Online to receive its Vice City Update in a way that doesn’t steamroll the GTA Online experience players have been playing for the past decade and beyond. GTA Online could become more like a hub, much like how Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed now have central hubs that let players install and jump into several different games in those series.
But going this route brings some of the same baggage as other options. More than any other approach, this one comes with the strongest expectation that players would keep most, if not all, of their purchases and bring them to both city maps. Players would also expect their avatars to travel between worlds, which includes their virtual wallets.
Again, this creates technical, balance, and artistic hurdles for Rockstar, which would have to juggle two of the biggest games in the world at the same time. Some players would probably even prefer that Rockstar doesn’t go this route, because every new update Los Santos’ online suite gets may feel like resources that Vice City was deprived of.
For last-gen players, this would still keep them locked out of the experience, too, though if you’re Rockstar or a console manufacturer, it’s not a bad problem to have an exciting new GTA experience in “look, but don’t touch” mode staring back at players in the game’s launcher.
Who gets mad:
- Players who want Rockstar to leave the old world behind to divert all resources to Vice City
- Players who expect more crossover between worlds but may not get it
- Last-gen players left to stare longingly at the fun they can’t have
Good problems, imperfect solutions
When I started writing this, I felt confident that GTA Online would adopt a modern live-service approach: update the existing GTA Online download, incorporate some type of saved-data carryover, and move along. But having mapped it all out, now I don’t know what to expect. There are potholes on whichever road Rockstar chooses.
For how long will the studio support what people think of as GTA 5 Online after the GTA 6 version arrives, and will they even coexist? To what extent will the new GTA Online experience respect players’ dedication from the past decade and beyond? How much has the Forever Game landscape shifted what players expect from a new GTA Online experience? For that matter, is there a world in which these two maps, Los Santos and Vice City, coexist, even as last-gen players can’t experience that shared world?
There are so many questions and seemingly no clear-cut right answer, only different solutions with different drawbacks. The nearly unrivaled size of the GTA playerbase means these are champagne problems for Rockstar, which must navigate how to satisfy the game’s hundreds of millions of buyers over the next decade and beyond. It’s a problem any other game company would die for, but it remains all but certain that, no matter which way it decides to design GTA Online’s future, some players will be left behind. We’re about to find out how much GTA is beholden to newer norms in the live-service world, and how much a game like GTA 6 can get away with forging its own path simply because nothing else in the world is quite like GTA.
GTA 6: 241 Screenshots To Ease The Wait
“}]]
[[{“value”:”Grand Theft Auto 6 is nearly here. Despite delays being so common these days, I finally feel confident about the game’s November 19 release date. Previously, I always waited for the other shoe to drop–for GTA 6 to be delayed over and over again. But this one feels like it’s going to stick.
When it releases, it’s only the single-player game that’ll be there on launch day. The GTA 6 version of GTA Online, in whatever form that takes, will come later. But more interesting than when the next era of GTA Online arrives is how it arrives. Since GTA 5 debuted, we’ve seen the emergence of what some call Forever Games: live-service games that consistently shift what they look like and how they play, but rarely ask players to reset all of their progress. Sure, a game like Fortnite offers major seasonal makeovers, but you still take all of your skins and accolades with you. When GTA 6 goes online, will it ask its millions of returning players to leave all their money, cosmetics, and progress behind?
It’s a huge question mark as we head toward the release of what may be the biggest game in video game history. There are a few approaches Rockstar could take, but seemingly none that avoid creating headaches for one group of players or another. Let’s break them down.
GTA 6 Online is a separate experience, living alongside GTA 5 Online
One option is to follow the GTA 5 model and launch a new GTA Online mode as an extension of GTA 6. But in that scenario, how much of that new experience will respect the time and money investment millions of players already have in the older version of GTA Online? If it’s like the move from GTA 4 to GTA 5, nothing would come along for that ride, but expectations are different today than they were in 2013.
Presumably, you won’t be able to bring everything with you–at the very least, mansions aren’t going to be moved from Los Santos to Vice City. But what about your money, clothing, weapons, and vehicles? These are all aspirational items in the GTA Online world that could seemingly be brought into the new game, if not for the imbalance they’d create in the community. You’re not really meant to have such a head start, as though you’ve entered GTA 6 cheat codes.
Is Rockstar going to let players bring these high-value items onto the neon-lit streets of its new game on day one? Things like clothing wouldn’t even fit, as the fashion of Vice City and Los Santos isn’t exactly the same. Each world has its own aesthetic, so even past the technical hurdles to making this happen–and those are substantial–there’s an artistic problem to solve, too. Fortnite gets away with it because it’s essentially a Funko Pop game where all brands and art styles are mashed together. GTA, however, is not.
How much of their avatar’s experience do GTA Online players expect to bring with them into GTA 6’s multiplayer world, and to what extent can Rockstar fulfill that expectation? Past games with plans for the far-off future, such as Destiny and Guild Wars, have had to make amends with their communities when sequels severed significant ties to players’ earlier accomplishments. GTA Online’s predicament is arguably worse, given the ability for players to spend real-world money to acquire their arsenals. This is a huge, looming question as we wait to learn more about what GTA Online looks like a year or two from now.
Maybe GTA 6 will get its online portion, and it’ll be a clean slate for everyone. Perhaps the simplest answer is that this is what Rockstar plans because it’s what it’s always done. But in 2013, few games other than PC MMOs were really meant to go on forever the way Fortnite, Roblox, or perhaps even GTA Online are today. Perhaps this has inspired Rockstar to rethink how it handles the transition of GTA Online–a game that is totally noncommittal about sequels or numbers in its title and can even be bought as a standalone experience, mind you.
Who gets mad:
Players who bought GTA Online standalone and who would then have to upgrade to the new GTA Online
Players who invested lots of time and/or money in GTA Online already, who can’t bring much, if anything, with them
Friend groups who can’t play together anymore
GTA Online gets a GTA 6 patch
Suppose Rockstar does take a markedly different approach to GTA 6’s online appendage. GTA Online eventually evolved from a component of GTA 5 to a standalone purchase. That could signal Rockstar is prepared to update GTA Online with–let’s call it–the “Vice City Update,” essentially remodeling the game from the ground up, similar to a new Fortnite chapter Epic puts out every winter. It’s the same “game,” as in the same tile on your console, but by way of a patch you download, it has completely changed into something new. This approach could go one of two ways.
GTA 6 Online fully replaces GTA 5 Online
This would be a departure from Rockstar’s past way of doing things, but it would be the more modern method, bringing it in line with other Forever Games. Like the other approach, it may or may not let you carry over your avatar. It may or may not pay tribute to your past accolades. It may or may not port your in-game money, clothing, and vehicles. But the glaring issue here is that it would erase GTA 5’s version of multiplayer from playable history.
Though some players would be mad at GTA 6’s online mode if it ignored their GTA 5 multiplayer accomplishments in a future in which they coexist, that’s probably a better path forward than completely disappearing the existing GTA Online experience. This approach would allow Rockstar to move all of its players–and all of its focus–to one game, which may be an attractive idea for the development team. That said, this would mean players on last-gen consoles (or PC) can’t play GTA Online at all. Those with a PS5 or Xbox Series X|S might lament the erasure of the old GTA Online, but they’d at least be able to access the new version.
Whereas the other path will annoy the most deeply invested players by severing at least some of the ties to their thousands of gameplay hours, this approach ditches the playability of those more dated experiences completely.
There’s also the question of when, if ever, Rockstar would give away the GTA 6 Online update to players as a free patch. If you already own GTA Online but don’t own GTA 6, would you be granted the Vice City Update for free when it arrives? Again, the questions surrounding this whole topic feel extremely messy.
Who gets mad:
Players on last-gen hardware and PC who can’t access the Vice City Update without a new, expensive console
Players who want to keep playing GTA 5’s multiplayer
Players who preorder GTA 6 just to play its multiplayer, who then learn they may not even need it
Every Grand Theft Auto 6 Character Revealed (So Far)
View Images
GTA Online is updated, letting Los Santos and Vice City coexist
Probably the most attractive option is for GTA Online to receive its Vice City Update in a way that doesn’t steamroll the GTA Online experience players have been playing for the past decade and beyond. GTA Online could become more like a hub, much like how Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed now have central hubs that let players install and jump into several different games in those series.
But going this route brings some of the same baggage as other options. More than any other approach, this one comes with the strongest expectation that players would keep most, if not all, of their purchases and bring them to both city maps. Players would also expect their avatars to travel between worlds, which includes their virtual wallets.
Again, this creates technical, balance, and artistic hurdles for Rockstar, which would have to juggle two of the biggest games in the world at the same time. Some players would probably even prefer that Rockstar doesn’t go this route, because every new update Los Santos’ online suite gets may feel like resources that Vice City was deprived of.
For last-gen players, this would still keep them locked out of the experience, too, though if you’re Rockstar or a console manufacturer, it’s not a bad problem to have an exciting new GTA experience in “look, but don’t touch” mode staring back at players in the game’s launcher.
Who gets mad:
Players who want Rockstar to leave the old world behind to divert all resources to Vice City
Players who expect more crossover between worlds but may not get it
Last-gen players left to stare longingly at the fun they can’t have
Good problems, imperfect solutions
When I started writing this, I felt confident that GTA Online would adopt a modern live-service approach: update the existing GTA Online download, incorporate some type of saved-data carryover, and move along. But having mapped it all out, now I don’t know what to expect. There are potholes on whichever road Rockstar chooses.
For how long will the studio support what people think of as GTA 5 Online after the GTA 6 version arrives, and will they even coexist? To what extent will the new GTA Online experience respect players’ dedication from the past decade and beyond? How much has the Forever Game landscape shifted what players expect from a new GTA Online experience? For that matter, is there a world in which these two maps, Los Santos and Vice City, coexist, even as last-gen players can’t experience that shared world?
There are so many questions and seemingly no clear-cut right answer, only different solutions with different drawbacks. The nearly unrivaled size of the GTA playerbase means these are champagne problems for Rockstar, which must navigate how to satisfy the game’s hundreds of millions of buyers over the next decade and beyond. It’s a problem any other game company would die for, but it remains all but certain that, no matter which way it decides to design GTA Online’s future, some players will be left behind. We’re about to find out how much GTA is beholden to newer norms in the live-service world, and how much a game like GTA 6 can get away with forging its own path simply because nothing else in the world is quite like GTA.
GTA 6: 241 Screenshots To Ease The Wait
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