What’s the biggest question about Grand Theft Auto 6? Easily Rockstar’s plans for GTA Online, and how it’ll factor into the post-launch plans of GTA 6. Considering just how consistently popular GTA Online has been for the developer, it is strange that Rockstar has yet to publicly comment on the anticipated multiplayer mode, as it has so far only focused on talking about the “single-player experience” of GTA 6. And that could be a major problem for the franchise.
As Valve veteran Chet Faliszek pointed out, Rockstar might be caught between a rock and a hard place. GTA Online continues to be a big money-maker for Rockstar and its parent group, Take-Two Interactive, but moving people to a GTA 6 online mode is a challenging prospect. As Faliszek explained, a lot of GTA Online players are heavily invested in the game, and thanks to GTA 5 regularly going on sale–or being given away for free through various programs–access to it has been cheap and easy.
“What are they going to do? That’s a mess. We can all look through recent history–without pointing fingers–and see some people who did it by total replacement. We can see people who tried to win people over, and when that didn’t happen, shut down the other thing,” Faliszek said.
Rockstar and Take-Two would likely want to move people over to the new GTA Online as soon as possible, but forcing people to make a fresh start could be an uphill battle. As people have pointed out, major updates for GTA Online could slow as Rockstar instead focuses on GTA 6, which would be a slow death for the groundbreaking mode.
Whatever choice Rockstar makes, it won’t please everyone. There are a few approaches Rockstar could take–like making GTA 6 Online a separate experience that exists alongside GTA 5 Online–but there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for this brewing problem. In other GTA 6 news, fishing and hunting has been radically changed for the game, there is such a thing as too much crime in the game, and the game is making big changes to how you steal cars. GTA 6 launches for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19.