Editorial GTA 6 is putting the pressure on Rockstar Games in a big way

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The pressure is on Rockstar Games, and it knows it. GTA V has sold over 200 million units. The franchise is one that is respected, often copied, and acclaimed by many throughout the world, and now, more than ever, the pressure is on to get the next instalment right. It may seem obvious, but when you start to burrow down into the nuts and bolts, you can really see how Rockstar Games has built itself a wall that's hard to hurdle.

Not only has the core game sold so well, but GTA Online has become such a powerhouse that the developer needs to keep a core contingent of their team working on content updates, patches, and new features for those gamers who choose to play each and every day.

Just how can GTA VI top that? The core and online components of the fifth Grand Theft Auto has made over $7 billion making it one of the biggest games of all time and it has been rereleased across several platforms since it debuted in 2013. These are all big numbers and if the online fanbase is anything to go by, anticipation is higher than ever for the sixth mainline entry in the series.

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It's not enough to make those numbers again, they have to be better. Almost 10 years is a long time to wait for a game that, for many, will be one of only a handful they'll play this generation. But if GTA VI is going to go big, then Rockstar Games needs to focus on what made the games so engaging and popular in the first place, satire.

Across the history of Grand Theft Auto, the series has been a middle finger to American society, although that has slowly expanded to take on societal norms. Social media isn't where it was a decade ago, neither is politics. We've had a whole pandemic and multiple worldwide scandals since GTA V came out.

Rockstar Games has never shied away from taking a snapshot of America and hoisting it up for the world to see. It's one of the main reasons that the franchise would never step away from American shores, which TheGamer has explained well. Over the years, Rockstar has taken aim at racism, reality TV, politics, and the idea of the American Dream, down to the ideals of liberty and freedom.

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Whether it's through radio station chatter, billboards that line the roads, or main story missions, there is always an eye on the ever-changing state of the country and, in the periphery, the world. Now, more than ever, we need Rockstar Games to lay it all on the line - to skewer the politicians that are making the world feel so unsafe, take aim at influencers, the constant fluctuations in our economies, the idea of what it means to be free, and the state of our environmental impact.

You can read this and scoff at that if you don't want a 'woke agenda' in your GTA, but Rockstar Games has always looked out for the oppressed and those without a voice. Hell, GTA IV was about an immigrant coming to the shores of the US to chase the American Dream only to see beyond the facade and fall into the criminal underbelly.

GTA: Vice City is the epitome of a country being built on sin and exploiting it for pleasure. Setting it during the 1980s when excess was running high was a shrewd move because it showcased that so many in society turned the other way, towards drugs and the idea of fame, rather than look at what both of those things were doing to the world.

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If you look at today's America, no matter what side of the political fence you fall on, it's a goldmine for satirists, and when it's done well, which Rockstar Games tends to do, it will succeed. But neglect that, and pretend that world doesn't exist and suddenly you've lost the spark that once ignited the engine of the series.

To swerve away from the politics and social commentaries, GTA VI needs to do more. It needs to excel and overtake every aspect of what has come before it. I'm not saying anything that the Rockstar Games development team doesn't know, but when you've come to define not only a genre but, for some, the entire industry, there are a lot of boundaries to push.

Whether you look at the core mechanics, the motion capture, the voice work, the characterisation of the cast, the exploration of the open world, or the personalisation of the journey, it all needs to go above and beyond GTA V.

It's not just the fans that are setting the game up to be the biggest and best game ever created, but history too. If we look to Metacritic, which gives us an average review score, taking into account opinions from critics the world over, we can see just how monumental the series is.

The Metacritic score for GTA IV is 98 out of 100. GTA V is only one point behind that with 97, and this is tied with GTA 3. If we look at GTA: San Andreas, which is often cited as the favourite of many, it scores 95 out of 100, the same as GTA: Vice City.

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This is a prestigious level of quality and a legacy that has stood for decades. And GTA hasn't just defined a genre, it defined the PlayStation 2 as a console because so many people bought that console just to experience the series. Let's not forget that even when Rockstar Games moves away from Grand Theft Auto, they can still get a 97 with Red Dead Redemption 2.

There are already fans claiming GTA VI will score a 99 or a perfect 100 on Metacritic upon release. Can you imagine working to that standard? And I feel I should mention that I don't doubt that Rockstar Games can do all of the things I've said in this article, but we're looking at a game coming out next year that should, and likely will, sink everything that came before it and set a new standard for the industry. All eyes are going to be on this and the past 10 years. As I said at the very start, the pressure is on Rockstar Games.