One of the biggest dangers of making a franchise of gaming titles is that you have to keep coming up with something new or meaningful for each subsequent game to keep the series fresh. If you don’t, you run the risk of the fanbase turning against the franchise due to it being “the same thing” with every new release. We’ve seen this happen with sports titles, action games, and more, so developers have to be on the top of their game when making their games, or else. GTA 6, at first glance via its trailer, seems to be something big, flashy, and fresh for the series. However, one ex-Rockstar Games developer seems to think that won’t be the case.
That man is Obbe Vermeij, who did a YouTube video where he was asked about the upcoming Rockstar Games title and how it was likely to compare to the record-breaking fifth entry in the franchise. What might surprise you is that while he praised the likely quality of the game, he felt that it wouldn’t be “too different” from its predecessor:
“I don’t think it’s going to be wildly different from GTA 5, I think maybe people might be a little disappointed on the first day. But it’s still gonna be the best game out there.”
Obbe did make it clear that he’s not “in the know” about what the game is like but predicts that while the “Miami Vibe” will be great, things might not be as unique and fresh as some would expect.
There are two different ways to interpret this. First, he could simply be noting that the overall gameplay will be the same, which is fair given how the franchise has been since the third mainline entry. It’s going to feature certain “standard elements” that will call back to what came before and so on.
However, based on what the reveal trailer showed, GTA 6 is likely to embrace the “Florida culture” in a way that it didn’t with previous versions being in Vice City. That alone could drastically change how things go and play within the title. If players have to experience the phrase, “stranger than an average day in Florida,” that would be enough of a “shift” in tone to make the experience worth it.
Plus, with the game having its first female protagonist and a set of main characters much different from the last entry, that might also “change things up” more than what Obbe was saying.
