We’ve been talking a lot about hype over the last several months, as it continues to build for GTA 6. Seriously, the hype levels won’t stop growing until the game launches next year. Things will also see an increase when it comes time to finally drop the third trailer, as fans and industry analysts will dissect it within an inch of its life to see what other details can be parsed from it. Anyway, the hype will continue to grow, and for Rockstar Games Co-Founder Dan Houser, that’s to be expected. After all, this is Rockstar Games we’re talking about here; they’re known for quality.
But it goes beyond that. In a special interview you can see below, Houser, who is no longer at Rockstar Games, noted that the reason the game is getting hyped up so much is that the series has spaced out its entries, and with each new iteration, Rockstar does even more with it to make it stand out from what came before:
“I think we did a really good job of constantly innovating within what the IP was. The games always felt different, you know, people have very strong feelings… because they [the games] are pretty different [from each other]. It’s a Grand Theft Auto, you know it’s gonna be a game about being a criminal, but the way it’s going to be a game is going to change quite a lot. So, I think, the way the IP kept evolving made people really excited to play it.”
He’s not wrong. One of the key things Rockstar Games has done is make each story feel special, regardless of the location or who the protagonist is. You can see that with how things have gone from Niko Bellic in the 4th entry, the trio of protagonists in the 5th entry, and the upcoming protagonists of Jason and Lucia, who will definitely throw a new twist onto things with their relationship.
Houser went even further by stating that “marketing” is a key part of why the game is so hyped. GTA 6 has only had two trailers so far, and they were ones that focused on Jason and Lucia and what things would be like for them in Vice City. This “minimalist” approach has made fans eager, and almost obsessed, with learning more so they can have better intel on what’s to come.
We’ll find out next year just how well things will go. But in the meantime, we’ll keep monitoring the hype.
