Imagine spending years playing San Andreas. GTA IV hasn’t been announced. Your mind races with the possibilities of a new game. You imagine they’re going to do a whole country instead of a few cities. You think of all the mini games, all the weapons, and customization. It is the first “next gen” GTA after all.
Then you have been playing IV for years. GTA V hasn’t been announced. Once again your mind races with possibilities. There is no end to the amount of detail it will have, there is nothing you can’t do, there is no limit to the map.
Now you’ve been playing V for years. Here we go again. But there really isn’t anything to imagine. You know it’s going to be just a bigger map. At least until it gets close to release, where the devs admit the map is the same size as V. They claim it’s okay because there’s more things to do. But all that means is more things to collect, more so-so mini games.
You’ve played RDR2 so you know how much detail it could have. You know they’ll simulate everything. So there can’t be any real surprises. You’ll see more wildlife. Your car windows will fog up. Your character will swat mosquitos.
You know the graphics can be just a little better, not like moving from PS2 to PS3. More reflections, slightly better lighting, a little more detail in the textures.
Now you realize you’re on the plateau. There are no more great heights to surmount.There is only lateral movement from here on out. GTA VI can only be as good as V, with marginal gains in every category, but not exceptional gains in any. You’ll drive from Point A to B. You’ll shoot the gangs. You’ll escort the cars. Everything you have already done.
There is a running theme in culture right now and it’s that large, long-standing franchises are starting to eat shit. They can no longer push the needle. GTA will join them.
the funniest thing they could do is announce it’s a top-down shooter
reject modernity, embrace tradition
GTAV’s character models still very much look like spruced up late 7th gen models though so that’s definitely something they could improve.
The thing that gets me about Rockstar games is that they’re simultaneously hyper-detailed to a ludicrously lavish extent yet incredibly shallow and arcadey because they’re the most popular games in the world and have to be accessible to everyone. They also have a reputation as consequence-free silly sandbox games where you can go on therapeutic murder sprees with miniguns and tanks
I’d just like an open world immersive criminal sim
I just want to be nice to people, and they be nice back to me.
Remember in GTA SA, you could go up to someone and say “Sup, homey?” and he’d fist bump you? I need that in my life again.
Every slight transgression in GTA V escalates beyond wild belief
In RDR1 you actually had a button dedicated to tipping your hat and greeting people, which was funny in Mexico because John Marston barely spoke Spanish.
I didn’t like how over the top GTAV was after GTAIV and Red Dead Redemption which were both more toned down compared to the previous generation of GTA games. I remember there being a backlash against GTA trying to be more grounded in IV and people bemoaning the lack of over-the-top wacky violence so I guess V was an attempt to return to tradition.
That whole style of crass humour feels so thoroughly dated and turn of the millenium now, I wouldn’t mind if they completely ditched it in 6. I still haven’t played it but it seems like RDR2 mostly already did- RDR1 still had slight remnants of that heightened satire
I don’t think there is anything wrong with a plateau in graphics. I’m not looking for 100% realism from any game.
We still haven’t had a game combine Red Faction Guerrilla and Tears of the Kingdom.
But then again, giant leaps are really only a video game thing.
Movies in a lot of key technical ways haven’t changed in generations.
Music as well.
Not having a huge leap forward means the game has be Great and interesting.
Like books.
The advent of relatively cheap and easy digital effects have been a pretty big game changer for movies within the last two decades. Same goes for audio quality with digital storage compared to tape/vinyl.
Books I got nothing, you win.
Movies and music are “easier” as you could do great effects, it was just much harder and expensive.
Same with music recording.
Games may be getting close to movies of the 1960s where anything is possible if you have the budget And effort.
You likely can’t do EVERYTHING in game, but can do good proximities.
There is a running theme in culture right now and it’s that large, long-standing franchises are starting to eat shit. They can no longer push the needle. GTA will join them.
Can you define what you mean by this? Still seems to me like culture is dominated by large franchises that have been stagnant for a long time. Especially when it comes to gaming, I can’t really think of many examples of them ‘eating shit’. Some are critical failures but they’re still making an ungodly amount of money. Even Mass Effect Andromeda was supposedly a financial success.
I don’t really see a future where GTA 6 flops in any meaningful way. GTA 5 is still wildly profitable and has a massive player base and viewership. People were depressingly desperate for this announcement. It’s target audience seems perfect for just shoveling more slop.
Like I wont be into it, and I assume most people here wont be either, but that’s been the case for the vast majority of best sellers for like a decade at least.
The make ungodly money from new gamers (i.e. easily swayed 12 year olds with no moral or historical context to draw from), and a minority of whales via microtransactions.
