Let me preface this by saying that I'm a longtime GTA fan, and so, to some extent, I don't blame people for being excited for the newest game in that franchise.
GTA 3 on the PS2 was a revolutionary game that changed the medium forever. Vice City and San Andreas built upon that same template and engine making games that were bigger in better in just about every way. I have mixed feelings about both GTA 4 and 5, both in terms of gameplay and story, but overall feel that they were good games with better shooting and driving than the PS2 era games. I never got into the online stuff outside of occasional racing, but I understand that it's hugely popular.
With that background, I don't doubt that GTA 6 will be a big seller, maybe even the biggest ever... But be that as it may, I think that it is riding on a big wave of unearned cultural hype:
- We have seen very little of what the game actually plays like, and almost nothing about what sets it apart from GTA 5 in terms of systems. The marketing leads me to believe this will be less sandbox and more story...
- All we have been told about the story of this game is that you play as Jason and Lucia, two lovers and ex-cons in Vice City. The trailers focus on their relationship, which is a unique angle for a GTA game, but we really don't get any insight into who these characters are as individuals or what makes them interesting.
- Despite the fact that GTA has always been something of a hit-or-miss parody of modern (usually American) life and culture, every piece of media I've seen surrounding this game has been totally devoid of any humor or commentary. There's a lot to make fun of in America (Florida especially) today, but based on the trailers, this is looking to be the least funny or satirical GTA game ever.
- This is the most expensive GTA game ever, and that's even without factoring in the paywalled features like premium car modding and character styling, but will it be the biggest? What does $80-100 get us?
- For better or worse, quite a few of the key people who made the GTA series what it was are now out of the picture, so the development team is going to be pretty different than past games. That could go either way, but I think it does invite a certain amount of skepticism.
- No initial PC release.
- No physical release for consoles.
So again, I really don't blame people for being hopeful or excited about a new GTA game coming out. If you're looking forward to this one then more power to you!
But I can't help feel that the levels of hype are way overblown for what we've seen of the gameplay, story and world building. If it wasn't part of the "GTA" franchise, I think this would be just another new release.
I'm more annoyed that general media is giving them free marketing just because it was a name brand over a decade ago without bothering to contemplate the fact that it was over a decade ago.
For a videogame franchise, that's a massive amount of time for so many factors to change. It would be like if they gave that horrible ghostbusters reboot full media credit just because it has the name "ghostbusters", so surely it must be a massive release worthy of everyone's attention.
The irony in all of this is that GTA6 is going to fall victim to the "GTA clone" concept that so many other games fell into. It will have none of what made GTA a massive hit and instead have all the stuff GTA clones tried to "copy" in a poor attempt to be a massive hit.
Rockstar is just cashing in on a decade's worth of hype and anticipation knowing full well that they'll earn a crap ton of money just like every other half assed AAA release this era. They're protected from initial skepticism because they haven't released anything substantial ever since RDR2, so there's literally nothing to critique them for. They can even wave off the lazy GTA remastered collections as outsourced material that has nothing to do with them.
I just hope the userbase doesn't continue to ride the train after the release because it just makes developer expectations worse for everyone else. Crowbcat is still highly unpopular due to his RE4 remake videos, despite the fact that what he presented is nothing uncommon among other games in the industry that have gotten much more criticism for botching the source material.